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Stages of Creativity
Where new ideas really come from
For me, the two most important parts of doing creative work are experimentation and fermentation.
Two years ago, Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin released a short documentary miniseries called McCartney 3, 2, 1 that delved into how Paul and the other Beatles worked. In the fourth episode, Paul talked about how they learned how to engineer and produce records. After the success of their first two records, the lads decided they wanted to learn more about how their sound was recorded and what the machines could do. They would sit down at the engineer’s board and turn knobs and twist dials to see what happened, almost like little kids.
Sometimes an engineer would tell one of them this knob shouldn’t be turned past this point, and of course, the Beatles would nod and then turn the knob past that point.
Paul described it as being professors in the laboratory. Most of the experiments didn’t work, but that’s the process they used to find all the innovative things that changed the way rock music was recorded by everyone.
This process is similar to how I make my poetry collage comics. I sit down and ask, what would happen if I did this with my pen or brush? I spend hours, fiddling with sliders and on the computer and scribbling different shapes with different pencils, pens, and brushes. At first, I barely understood what everything did. Now three years later, I know how to make specific effects. I never know what will come out of the process until I try to make something.
Fermentation is related to experimentation.
There is no creation ex-nihilo. Everything from the prehistoric Lascaux cave paintings to Ai Weiwei’s most recent work are the results of being influenced by the world. The imagination of the artist needs fuel. What fuel you need is unique to you.
The first idea I have about anything is usually a bad one. I rarely write down the first thought I have on anything because that sets it in cement and stops it from evolving into a good idea. It prevents fermentation.
Ideas should mash and crash into each other, undergoing a metaphysical or chemical change (depending on whether you believe creativity is spiritual or neurological). The time your ideas must ferment is once again personal to you. I find different projects require different lengths of fermentation.
Innovation is never a brand-new idea with no roots in anything else. Innovation is the process of fusing unexpected things together. Creation happens when you have the discipline to show up every day to make horrendous stuff in different ways. Eventually, something worth sharing will evolve out of that process.
What works for you? I’d love to hear about your unconventional routines, practices, or tools!
