Kurt Vonnegut’s answer when he was asked, "Were do you get your ideas?"

Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him.

It was music.

I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out.

It was disgust with civilization.

Quote via devilduck

Here are a few quotes from Fred Rogers, host of children’s show Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, on creativity from the book You Are Special.

There would be no art and there would be no science if human beings had no desire to create. And if we had everything we ever need or wanted, we would have no reason for creating anything. So, at the root of all art and all science there exists a gap – a gap between what the world is like and what the human creator wishes and hopes for it to be like. Our unique way of bridging the gap in each of our lives seems to me to be the essence of the reason for human creativity.

When people help us to feel good about who we are, they are helping us love the meaning of what we create in this life.

Play is the real work of childhood.

Grown-ups are often puzzled by children’s play because we don’t fully understand, but a child needs the freedom to play what we don’t always understand.

Some toys make children conform to them. They are not objects that children could make conform to their own fantasies and feelings. The time spent making those toys work means less time spent in the kind of play young children need most — pay of their own invention.  There is a big difference between toys that we can adapt to our own inner needs and toys that make us adapt to them.

I’ve often hesitated in beginning a project because I’ve thought, “It’ll never turn out to be even remotely like the good idea I have as I start.” I could “just” feel how good it could be. But I decided, for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

Often the creative urge, once we express it, brings real relief in whatever form it takes. We have an inner sense that we can make what is into what we feel could and should be.

Imagining something may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.

Did you ever read something, have it stick in your head and then not remember where you read it?

Well, it happened with me and this essay called, How To Manage Smart People by Scott Berkun. I read it years ago and quoted it to lots of people, but couldn’t remember the source. Then, a friend who knew I was looking for it, emailed me a link. Now, I pass it on to you.

It’s full of great advice about managing people who are smart and talented, but it had one question that stuck in my head. It suggests that the best question to ask your brilliant talented employee was, “What do you need from me in order to kick ass?”

For most of us, in our creative lives, we are our own managers. We decide how we work and where and what we work on. Have you ever asked yourself, what do I need from me to kick ass? Then seriously tried to answer it?

It might be something simple like easily accessible caffeine or more time alone. Or, it could be more complicated and emotional. In any case, it’s one way to help yourself live up to your creative potential. And, if you manage creative people, a great question to ask them as well.

What do I need from me to kick ass?

Read the essay here

Do you have to be mentally ill to be creative?

Psychology Today doesn’t think so. This article points out that most people think coming up with the idea the hard part, but truly creative people know that’s not true.

So what does matter?

Persistence. Hard work. Trial and Error. Skill. The ability to tell a good idea from a bad idea.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, best known for his work on flow, has spent four decades studying the creative process. He recounts the experience of sculptor Nina Holton. “Tell anybody you’re a sculptor and they’ll say, ‘Oh, how exciting, how wonderful,'” Holton told him. Her response to such comments: “What’s so wonderful?” Then she explains that being a sculptor is “like being a mason or a carpenter half the time.” She finds that “they don’t wish to hear that because they really only imagine the first part, the exciting part. But, as Khruschev once said, that doesn’t fry pancakes, you see. That germ of an idea does not make a sculpture that stands up. So the next stage is the hard work. Can you really translate it into a piece of sculpture?”

And this delicious nugget:

“If the writer doesn’t sit at the computer every day,” he points out. “The muse is not going to visit.”