[kennyc]

A Surprising Technique for Sparking Your Creativity
By MARGARITA TARTAKOVSKY, M.S.
Associate Editor

A Surprising Technique for Sparking Your CreativityWhenever you’re in the muck of a creativity block, your first instinct might be to run to your favorite books for rescue. To bathe in their wisdom. To let their words stir you and rouse you to create.

Whenever I’m stuck, I always turn to the books I trust most to nourish my brain when it seems barren.

Go read is wise advice to follow when you’re feeling creatively blocked or lost in life. That’s the advice you’ve probably heard from numerous teachers, mentors and countless renowned writers and artists.


In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King stresses the importance of reading for becoming a good writer:

“… You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but ‘didn’t have time to read,’ I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.”

But in her beautiful book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, author Julia Cameron instructs readers to do the opposite: Don’t read. Anything. For a week.

According to Cameron, “If you feel stuck in your life or in your art, few jump starts are more effective than a week of reading deprivation.” She says that for most artists, words are akin to “tiny tranquilizers” or “greasy food.” It clogs our system, and too much of it leaves us fried.

....

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...ur-creativity/