Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide

This insight helped me to view my fallow periods as preparatory to the fertile ones, and therefore as an inseparable part of the whole creative process.

Once you’ve come up with a new idea, there are two ways to test it. First, there is the one I described earlier, when you bring the critical faculties you suspended during the playful stage to bear on whatever it is that you have thought of. You’re now sufficiently clear about your idea to be in a position to evaluate it. If you decide it can be im

if you have zero expectations at the start, you can hardly fail. And you’re already priming your unconscious…

The anthropologist Gregory Bateson once said, ‘You can’t have a new idea ’til you’ve got rid of an old one.’

creative people are much better at tolerating the vague sense of worry that we all get when we leave something unresolved.

For example, when you eat, the bit where the fork returns empty to your plate isn’t a failure. It’s just part of the eating process.

The trouble is that most people want to be right. The very best people, however, want to know if they’re right.

the bigger the leap, the longer the creative period is likely to be.

you have to create a safe place, where you can play. This involves first creating boundaries of space, and then boundaries of time.