Creativity
Is it Creativity or Goddess?
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, I’m endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration? Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a muse—a goddess who comes by to inspire an artist—makes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (can’t get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase “bad for business” which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot. Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser. Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kid’s mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
So You Live With that Brain All the Time?
I do! And I like it! I worry about people who can’t connect completely random dots. Don’t they get bored just going from A to B to C? It’s so much better to go A to Q to C to R. But that’s not to say that creativity is just something that happens. There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, I’m referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s. Who greenlit that?! Don’t Google it. You’re happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there weren’t a lot of female spies in the marketplace. So I solved that problem. I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Want to know what other problems I’ve solved? Check out my website to find out.
Or head over to the Stiletto Gang’s books page to see what the Gang’s creativity has produced: StilettoGang.com/books/
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Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.
Love the way your brain functions!
Ah…where would we be without our muses? I never want to find out. Fun post, Bethany!
Ha of course! I always think of a demon bursting through the door at a nonprofit fundraiser 🙂 This is brilliant, Bethany. I’ve never given my muse a toga and a lovely figure, but I do have one that sits on my shoulder. I call it my good guy/left guy… good guy says you can do this, bad guy says this is bunk 🙂 Love this blog.
I used to show my creative writing classes a movie entitled, “Why Man Creates.” The movie starts with a cartoon compilation of great works of art over the centuries and moves to a rather philosophical hypothesis that all creativity occurs in response to the question, “What if?” Your example bears that out beautifully! Fun!
What if… It is sort of the ultimate question. Love it.
What if . . . they decide to keep our brains after we die and discover all those ping pong balls?…