Creativity Constraints - Lack of Resources

In my article The Key to Success: Resourcefulness (Creativity + Determination), I refer to Anthony Robbin's Ted.com Talk and how he explains that the problem when people is fail is not lack of resources, but lack of resourcefulness.

In fact, a lack of resources--such as time, money, and technology--can actually be a creativity booster. Here are three examples of creativity constraints:

Shoot Out Boulder

The Shoot Out Boulder is a filmmaking festival that asks filmmakers to make a 7-minute film in just 24 hours. In addition, there's a list of required technical, material, and timing 'rules' for creating the films.

National Novel Writing Month

If you've been dreaming for years of writing a novel, sign up for National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) which takes place each November. Nanowrimo gives participants the challenge of writing a novel in a month's time. This is what they have to say about their deadline:

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

The Houdini Solution

Ernie Schenck, author of "The Houdini Solution", is a big proponent of creativity constraints and limits as fuel for the fires of creativity. In his book he refers to the Apollo 13 mission in which an explosion on board caused the spacecraft to lose oxygen, electricity, light, and water approximately 200,000 miles from Earth.

The engineers at Houston had to find a solution which the astronauts could implement using the few materials they had on board. If they failed, the crew would die of asphyxiation before they made it back home.

Here's a quote from the book:

". . . talk about thinking inside the box. You’ve got to design a new product. You’ve got to build that product. Your raw materials consist of cardboard, plastic bags, duct tape, and other low-tech materials. And, hey, just for good measure, you’ve got less than 48 hours to do it all or people are going to die."

Conclusion

So the next time you're staring at a blank page, see if you can come up with some constraints to help get your creative juices flowing. For more tips and resources on how to be more creative, visit my squidoo lens: "How to Be More Creative". Another great resource is my ebook, "How to Be More Creative - A Handbook for Alchemists".

(The "Houdini" image is from here).

Inspiration for Writers

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.” -- Joyce Carol Oates

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work." -- Pearl S. Buck

"Caress the detail, the divine detail." Vladimir Nabokov

"A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes." -- William Sansom

"Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped." -- Lillian Helman

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." -- E.L. Doctorow

"Use the right word and not its second cousin." -- Mark Twain

"To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later." -- Brander Matthews

"I write the first sentence and trust in God for the next." -- Laurence Sterne

"In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give to your style." -- Sydney Smith

"Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write." -- Robert Penn Warren

"Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to." -- Somerset Maugham

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…The wait is simply too long." -- Leonard S. Bernstein

For writings tips and advice for writers, from writers, visit my Squidoo lens: “Tips for Writers, From Writers”.

Writing Advice From Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of over fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His book "On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft" is both a textbook for writers and a memoir of Stephen's life. "If you want to be a writer," Stephen King says, "you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."

King emphasizes that writers have to be well-read. He adds that he has no patience for people who tell him that they want to be writers but they can't find the time to read. The answer is simple: if you don't read, you can't be a writer. You have to read just about everything. In addition, you also have to write in order to develop your own style.

When it comes to the reading part of it, King explained during a lecture at Yale that if you read enough, there's this magic moment which will always come to you if you want to be a writer. It's the moment when you put down some book and say: "This really sucks . . . I can do better than this . . . And this guy got published." So go ahead, read all you can, and wait for that magical moment.

Here's an excerpt from "On Writing":

"Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that's what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings)...I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: "Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%. Good luck."

For more writing tips, visit my Squidoo lens: "Writing Tips for Writers, From Writers".

Quotes on Simple Pleasures

"We will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things." - J.D. Bernal

"The man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest." -- Thoreau

"What can your eye desire to see, your ears to hear, your mouth to take, or your nose to smell that is not to be had in a garden?" -- William Lawson

"When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life, for the enjoyment of eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends and watching children at play, then we have missed the purpose of life. Not on bread alone do we live but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries. " -- Ed Hayes

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." -- Oprah Winfrey

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort." -- Jane Austen

If you liked these quotes, you'll love my Squidoo lens: "100s of Ways to Celebrate Life".

Learn Effective Ways to Communicate Why You're Angry

Although there are many anger management styles, the best one is assertive problem solving. People with this style of anger management pay attention to their anger signals and respond in an assertive manner. They deal directly with the person related to the issue at hand, and they talk to them in a direct, honest, and polite way. Choose to adopt this style of anger management; you can begin by communicating assertively with others when you get angry.

An effective way in which to tell others what you need or want is to speak in "I" statements, stating clearly the behavior that you're referring to, how it makes you feel, and what you would like to happen. Here's the basic formula:

"When you (specific behavior)".
"I feel (specific feeling)."
"I want (specific goal)."

For example: "When you're out late and you don't call to say where you are, I feel that you don't care that I'm at home worrying about you. I want for you to call me when you're going to be late."

For more information on how to control anger, visit my Squidoo lens: "Controlling Anger: Tips, Techniques, and Resources"

Healthy Anger

In "Letting Go of Anger - The Eleven Most Common Anger Styles & What to Do About Them", Ron Potter-Efron and Patricia Potter-Efron explain that people who use anger well have a healthy or "normal" relationship with anger. These people tend to think of anger in the following ways:

• Anger is a normal part of life.
• Anger is an accurate signal of problems that need to be addressed.
  
• Angry actions are carefully screened; you needn't get automatically angry just because you could.
  
• Anger is expressed in moderation so that there is no loss of control.
• The goal is to solve problems, not just to express anger. In addition, the goal is not to hurt others.
  
• Anger is clearly stated in ways that others can understand.
• Anger is temporary; it can be relinquished once a problem is solved.
  

Anger is a signal that something is wrong in your life that needs to be addressed. You need to re-examine the way in which you've dealt with anger in the past and ask yourself if it's the most effective way there is to deal with anger. If not, you need to pick a new strategy to deal with your anger that will help you to obtain the results you desire. For information on how to control anger, visit my Squidoo lens: "Controlling Anger: Tips, Techniques, and Resources".