I’ve been reading Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity.

Here are a few observations on his creative process.

1. He compares creativity to fishing. You cast your line into the water and you get what you catch, not necessarily what you want. The surface fish are more common and easier to catch, the deep fish are the ones you want.

2. If you come up with an idea that you intuitively know fits, don’t work to justify using it. Just let it sit. If it doesn’t seem like it works, trust that it does. The deep fish might not seem to fit, but it just connects on a deeper and less obvious level.

3. If you get an idea that doesn’t fit the project you’re working on, set it aside and get to it later. Don’t throw things away.

4. Use mistakes or surprises that happen during the creative process as part of what you’re doing. Don’t smooth them over and ignore them. Remember, a pattern is just a mistake that gets repeated.

5. All the torment and trouble that you don’t want in your life, you want in your art. Keep the two separate.

6. Contrary to popular belief, things are beauitful as they decompose. If not on the whole, at least the visible textures.