The word “obsession” has taken on taken on a negative spin in the last decade. It used to be that if you were obsessed with something it meant you were good at it and knew all about it. Well, drug companies and stalking laws have redefined being obsessed, to any degree, as abnormal.

Think about all the great artists in the world that were obsessed with something. Painters that painted the same subjects over and over again. Writers that dealt with the same situations or topics in everything they wrote. It’s funny, but it’s usually because of these obsessions that we enjoy the artist in the first place. It’s like a hook or a doorway into what they do.

To super-charge your creativity, take a topic you are interested in but haven’t studied and developed a short-term obsession. How short? That’s up to you. It could be a day, a week or a month. Read a book on it. Google up all the best websites on the topic. Talk to other people about it. No topic is too high or too low. If you like  Christopher Walken, use him. The possibilities are endless, cowboy poetry, unicorns or squirrel recipes, whatever you find yourself wanting to obsess on, do it!

When you sit down to create you won’t be short on ideas. In fact, the idea will be right in front of you. Make sure you create more than one thing based on your obsession or it really doesn’t qualify.

Eventually, you’ll get tired of your obsession. Just drop it. You can always go back to it. In the meantime, pick something else to be obsessed with.

Being obsessed frees you from having to worry about being “creative” in the sense that most people use the word. You don’t have to come up with a big idea or topic, you just use what is right in front of you.

I’m off to research the use of surgically implanted monkey glands used to keep rich people young in the 1920s.