Merlin Mann - “Toward Patterns for Creativity” - Macworld (via macworld)
In this talk Merlin Mann says some really, really interesting stuff about creativity. I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything he says.
Scattered thoughts/notes:
Twyla Tharp, when beginning a project, goes out into the world for inspiration and then throws everything (newspaper clippings, images, whatever) into a box. For one project, she sometimes has twelve boxes. She might not know why she’s putting it in the box, or what it will lead to, but she does it anyway.
That is the exact function of this blog. Tagged, searchable box.
Also: I see what he’s saying about creativity not being some mystical “gift”, that’s interesting to me since I’m reading The Gift in which Hyde talks about creativity as a gift. However, I think their uses are different, and if Merlin read The Gift, he would actually agree that those two definitions of gift can exist side-by-side.
His point is that we can establish patterns such as:
1) collect everything
2) “work your ass off”
3) edit (John Cage himself in rules for artists, says it’s important to separate creating and editing, I agree)
This seems to me to be similar to Gladwell’s point in Outliers, which I haven’t yet read.
Merlin: “If you’re creative, give yourself a chance to be really excited about it, then work your ass off and get better and you’ll be really happy.”
