Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Apart from sleep where the creative act seems involuntary and instantaneous, it does appear that a creative process goes on all the time beneath the level of conscious thought.

--Neil Gunn, The Atom of Delight

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strangely, for me, the creative process is very conscious. My best ideas come when I clear my head and focus all of my energy on a story or problem. What is involuntary for me is the moment-by-moment perceptions which spring up and drag emotions with them.

billie said...

I tend to notice my process a lot more than I used to - and I often use that awareness to provoke solutions to creative problems.

It almost always works for me if I get up and leave the work in progress when I hit a sticky point - inevitably if I go ride or take a bath and let my head clear, the solution pops up very quickly.

Anonymous said...

Good post.

billie said...

Funny - I didn't even remember this one and when I went to see what it was you were commenting on, it was exactly what I needed to read this morning.

Thanks for directing me back to it!