I am not sure what creativity means. Is a plumber -- when improvising something ingenious under your kitchen sink -- as creative as a copywriter or a designer? Webster is not really helpful this time by defining creative as "Having the power to create; exerting the act of creation." Ok, I kind of figured that out myself. What else? Google does a better job (when does it not?) and among other definitions is this "Having unusual ideas and innovative thoughts. Able to put things together in new and imaginative ways." Here we go, it's not only exerting the act of creation in a dull manner but by having new, unusual approaches. So that plumber seems to be creative when improvising, doesn't he?

We like the creative-something titles on our business cards, we really do, but I don't think that creative professions hold the monopoly on creativity and I've seen business people having more out-of-the-box ideas and trusting their guts about that than many advertising people. Creativity is a state of grace equivalent to a mark of excellence in almost any profession.

So, for the creative wannabes of all sorts, Hugh of gapingvoid.com posts a 13 points list about How to be creative, and I'll paste here an excerpt from the 6th bullet just to make you want more.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

« Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

So you've got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don't know where the itch came from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...

Until now.

You don't know if you're any good or not, but you'd think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don't know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. You have a friend who's got a cousin in California who's into this kind of stuff, but you haven't talked to your friend for over two years...

Besides, if you write a book, what if you can't find a publisher? If you write a screenplay, what if you can't find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook? You've always worked hard your whole life, you'll be damned if you'll put all that effort into something if there ain't no pot of gold at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow...

Heh. That's not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. That's your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring & tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up. [...] »