“How can you go on talking so quietly, head down-wards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.
The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.”
“Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,” he went on after a pause, “was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course.”
“In time to have it cooked for the next course?” said Alice. “Well, that was quick work, certainly!
“Well, not the next course,” the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone: “no, certainly not the next course.”
“Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn’t have two pudding-courses in one dinner?”
“Well not the next day,” the Knight repeated as before: “not the next day. In fact,” he went on, holding his head down, and his voice getting lower and lower, “I don’t believe that pudding ever was cooked! In fact, I don’t believe that pudding ever will be cooked! And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.”
From “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll
I’m sure most of us have heard that it’s good to try something new, or else we lose the bit of creative spunk necessary to create great things. (If you are one of the people who has not heard this, I encourage you to read yesterday’s post.)
I’m a fan of Lewis Carol’s works, and can find all kinds of interesting truths in them. The text above is one such example. Sometimes we have to put ourselves in strange positions to allow creativity to stir around inside us and produce something great. So, maybe for me it isn’t inventing things while upside down, but coming up with a character for my novel while sitting in a tree, or in the attic at my parents’ house, or while eating something different, like pistachio ice cream instead of my coveted chocolate chip cookie dough.
Try some strange things of your own. The Mind Sprocket staff is always interested in ways people get creative, and would love to write further and more substantially on the subject, so if you feel inclined, send your ideas to magazine@mindsprocket.com
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Peter Atkinson said:
It’s not so much getting ideas that worries me. It’s making it past the finish line with them. Too often i happen to see another idea i like, and dropping one i pursue the other. But i did find one way to actually keep up my energy and inspiration for a project. All too often, especially when animating, i am stuck indoors, soldering heads, or taking test shots. The best way to regain inspiration and energy is to go out to a field, a lake, or an inspiring scene and set it down. You could draw it, write it, metaphorize it, i don’t really care how you do it. But once you go back indoors i always find renewed energy and outlook on whatever project i do. The most important thing about this is that it has to be done with your hands. Note i left out photographing it. As lovely as taking a picture is, without working toward a small goal, which has no purpose other than joy and renewal, i can’t get a burst of fresh outlook. It doesn’t feel as connecting with the subject when i let a camera do it for me. It takes having yourself mess up at drawing it or writing it because then you realize that no one can reproduce the beauty of a living fragile thing.
March 20, 2008 @ 6:12 pm