Creative Hot Spots

23 April 2010 | Filed Under Creativity, Tales from the Author's Desk 

A creative hot spot is a place where you generate a high level of creative ideas for your stories. Every writer has their own. And if you don’t, well maybe you just haven’t found it yet.

During college, my creative hot spot was, believe it or not, the bathroom. Usually in the shower, but sometimes while brushing my teeth. One time I stepped into the bathroom for thirty seconds to change my clothes, and came out with a brand new comic idea.

Now, my creative hot spot is in the car, while singing along with the radio or a cd. Odd circumstances, but true. I drove down to school to visit a friend yesterday, and came up with several fixes for my NaNoWriMo revision. And on the way back today, I came up with a scene for Too Many Princesses.

I think this means I need to drive more!

So, where are your creative hot spots?

Comments

2 Responses to “Creative Hot Spots”

  1. Arte on April 23rd, 2010 2:20 pm

    Simple and mundane tasks like going to the bathroom, or mechanical actions like driving are already things we do without thinking. Thus, the brain is on ‘auto pilot’ mode during those circumstances, as the reflexes do most of the job in those situations. This leaves a lot of unused gray matter that is still buzzing with activity in the frontal lobes. The result is a brain that has a lot of time to come up with ideas and stimulate pleasure centers so that the ideas feel good. In other words, these places tend to be good for the creativity because they are so mundane.

  2. Jenn on April 23rd, 2010 2:27 pm

    Exactly! But, not all of these mundane actions generate creativity for me. I haven’t gotten any ideas while washing dishes, for example. Or they used to work, but now they don’t, like the shower.

    So sure, the science makes sense. But there’s a part of this process that doesn’t involve science. Possibly, it involves subtle and invisible forces. (dun dun DUN)

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