3 Ways to Unleash Your Creativity
I don’t know about you, but I often overthink the creative process. Sometimes we need a guide who can help us simplify things so we can get some traction and make forward progress.
In this post, Michael S. Rogers shares the lessons on creativity he learned while writing the novel Passing Lincoln. The book features a unique story about a 5-dollar bill that travels through the hands of various citizens in Beulah, Indiana.
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When I wrote Passing Lincoln, I wasn’t creating a different way to write a book. The format of the book was less a momentous epiphany and more a struggle to make something of my befuddled mind. I’d like to share what I learned along the way about the creative process.
Between careers and between projects, a character spoke to me so clearly I knew her name, where she was, what she looked like, and how she acted. I know better than to fight that. I wrote her story.
Here’s the problem: by the time I finished the scene, I had developed it into an epic tale of redemption and faith.
I do it every time. I am inspired to write a short story, then turn it into an idea for a novel. It drives me crazy because I don’t write as well when I stretch the length of a story.
It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve devoured books on plot and character. I’ve explored script-writing to incorporate things like the turning point in the first fifteen minutes of a movie. I’m practically a walking encyclopedia on The Process of All the Great Writers.
So I attacked my new novel idea with all my knowledge and dumped it into the same washing machine with my newly written scene, punched in the settings I’ve been taught will work, and let the machine do its thing.
It never, ever works for me. Somehow, the machine always gets unbalanced and stops. I’ll back up and go through the rinse again with the manic hope it will go through the whole cycle.
The machine stops every time. I just can’t make it work, and the first chapter of Passing Lincoln was no exception. Dejectedly, I threw that neat little scene of Dolores putting a five-dollar bill in the offering plate in my growing file of unused stories. What else could I do? I’m a short story writer with epic ideas!
Unless …
What if I took advantage of how my mind worked and wrote each chapter as a short story?
Imagining the possibilities, I asked myself how could work if it was the length of a novel. How could I give myself permission to use different points of view and tenses—really test my writing skills—and yet keep a story together?
What if the main character was the five-dollar bill?
Passing Lincoln was born. I wrote in first, second, and third person. I wrote in the present and past tense. I used different formats—prayer journal, online chat, text message, diary entry, email exchange.
In other words, I used the strength of my short story writing to create a novel about redemption and faith. Along the way, I learned some valuable lessons about creativity that I can’t keep to myself.
3 Lessons
1. Learn all you can. Finding your own voice is less like discovering your inner self and more like your inner self unfolding in the presence of those who know better than you. Never, never, never stop learning. All that knowledge will make you a better creator.
2. Play to your strengths. When you find out you can’t use the same structure as the latest successful artist, that’s a good thing. Now you know how it doesn’t work, which is just as informative as finding what does work. Your job isn’t to succeed doing it like Ernest Hemingway or Ansel Adams or the Beatles. Your job is to find ways to unleash the creativity built into you.
3. Do it your way. Once you’ve learned all you can and failed all you can, find a way that brings out your best creative self and do that. Who knows? If you succeed, someone may ask you to befuddle the minds of those who come after you!
Passing Lincoln has a legacy for me now. I learned how to write well, found my strengths, and created a new way that works for me. I hope your next project does the same for you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts! What is a lesson that you have recently learned about creativity in your own life? Share in the comments!
Michael S. Rogers is a Jesus follower, husband, father, preacher, author, and founder of Alive to Grace. His family is his first ministry, but he also currently pastors Faith Church of Christ in Burlington, Indiana. You can find him at his website, Amazon author page, and on Facebook.
