IWSG Post: Creativity in My Life

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(Optional) November 7 question – How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

Oh, wow. I’m more focused now. I think. And I’ve seen how each aspect of my business life (publisher, author, marketer) can and should be filled with creativity. Some parts are more obviously creative, but even the more numbers-filled publishing role needs to look at things sideways sometimes.

I’ve also learned a whole heck of a lot more techniques to help me with creativity, some of them, like the Zettelkasten, fairly recently. Here’s a partial list:

Mind-mapping/clustering (as outlined in the book Writing the Natural Way by Gabrielle Rico and in Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways course).
Zettelkasten/Slip Box (a technique for keeping track of research created by Niklas Luhmann).
Visual Journaling (from The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam).
Character interviews (whole lot of different sources for this one).
Morning Pages (mentioned in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron).

Of the whole list, mind-mapping or clustering, is the one I use the most. I’ve used it to get down to what I really think, what really matters, and what’s closest to my heart. It is the craziest thing, seeing what I think are completely random words suddenly have connection and meaning because they’re part of a larger puzzle.

What about you? How has your creativity evolved over the years.