Best 241 quotes in «creative process quotes» category

Art is a journey of excellence not a goal of perfection.

Art has something to do with beauty. The act of creating beauty pulls the portion of your soul to the surface that is true to the way you were created.

Art manifests itself in paradoxical ways. At times it creates and at times it gets created!

Artists see the invisible before anyone else.

Art is the overflow of emotion into action.

A storm of yellow notepads, broken pencils, papers, and books littered the tables and floor of the room, along with a collection of empty beer cans. It looked as if a party of wild librarians had just cleared out.

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of." [From the preface.]

Beautiful things come together one stitch at a time.

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else’s snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It’s world-creating. It’s raw, exposed dreaming. It’s humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next. It’s what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience.

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Or else they are likely going to move on to another book.

Creativity can turn into an avalanche or a tempest, but can also flow like a meandering tributary to same destination

Creativity is as much about order against freedom; control versus rebellion; organisation against disorder as it is about straightforward imagination.

Creativity is a magic wand that works two ways. When you set it in action and seek to create something, it does not just brings into existence that object or work, it also raises in your heart a dream, a hope, and a will to achieve that creation. And when all else seems lost and steeped in hopelessness, the magic of creativity can still keep you going. For when all else seem dark, an urge to create something would still give you an aim to look forward to. And if you just take hold of this urge, it will take hold of you and see you through even the darkest times. Like it did to me.

Creativity isn't a switch that's flicked on or off; it's a way of seeing, engaging and responding to the world around you.

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them." [Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking (The Creativity Post, December 6, 2011)]

A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.

As you become a better writer, the writing becomes more difficult. You toil harder to tell a story in a smaller number of words.

A wise man will create more opportunities than those that have been presented to him.

A writer can do without food for a few hours but not without the sight of books.

A writer gets to live yet another life every time he or she creates a new story.

Be a good reader first if you wish to become a good writer.

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions." (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)

But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

Catching creativity is like catching butterflies – fast-flying, bright-colored sparks darting here and there, it requires quick wits, good eyes and desire to net them. And once you have them, you need to act fast. An idea, like a butterfly doesn’t last long: it is ephemeral. It is here, and now it is gone – so quick, grab your laptop, your pen and paper, your Dictaphone, your sketch pad, whatever your mode of expression or recording, swoop and catch.

Certain words, certain expressions. Things like ‘I love you’ and ‘I hate you.’ They’re big traps for actors. They can tempt you away from the connection you’ve developed with your partner and lead you into swamplands of clichéd performing. ‘Love’ and ‘hate’ are powerful words, and for some reason, we feel like we must fulfill them—and other words like them—whenever we say them. But we don’t have to.” Bill turns to Adam. “Actors hit that line—‘you know I’m absolutely crazy about you. Don’t you?’—and go all kablooey. Your head’s saying, ‘How can I not say a line like that without letting love swim into the duck pond? But inside you’re saying, ‘To hell will love! This girl’s really pissed me off, breaking off an important date like that.’ Follow your true inner response. It will never lead you astray. You’ll be bubbling up with impatience and irritation and you’ll say a line like that and it’ll have new meaning. It’ll have your meaning. Remember: Bad actors consciously adjust their inner responses to what they think the lines of the text require. Good actors adjust the text to the inner emotional line created by their sensitized responses to the other actor.” Adam says, “I get it. I was trying to act the words.” Bill nods. “You were manipulating yourself, cutting off our real response in order to live up to what you thought the text demanded of you. But any line can mean anything, and come out of you in any way.

Compassion, in its essence, is neutral. It’s holistic that way, and powerful because it yields a much wider perspective free of judgment or stress of any kind. We use it all the time in our work the way we’re always studying humanity intensely — always walking in someone else’s shoes, feeling the seams in their socks, wounds and elations in their souls.

Consuming the content and culture of creatives does not make one a creative. Creating makes a creative.

Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. It's not a good arrangement. If I were God, I wouldn't have done it that way. [Interview, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 2009]

Creativity is an inherently human trait that allowed us to dominate our environment and make our way to the top of the food chain.

Creativity is the tangible manifestation of an indulgent excursion through a higher state of transcendental consciousness.

Creativity takes courage. Not just once, but consistently. Without courage we cannot be creative. Without feeling fear at some point we will not reach our creative potential. From first putting paint on paper through to selling our work on a worldwide stage there is plenty to be scared of. But this is where creativity lives – on the edge of our comfort zones.

Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion.

Desire is the impulse that sparks the flame.

Despair and disappointment are the parent of countless inspired, inspiring, triumphant creations

Don’t break the rules when you haven’t fully figured them out yet.

Don’t dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. Set yourself a “stint,” [London wrote 1,000 words nearly every day of his adult life] and see that you do that “stint” each day; you will have more words to your credit at the end of the year. Study the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers. They are doing things, and their work bears the internal evidence of how it is done. Don’t wait for some good Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out for yourself. See that your pores are open and your digestion is good. That is, I am confident, the most important rule of all. Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory. And work. Spell it in capital letters. WORK. WORK all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to Godhead. And by all this I mean WORK for a philosophy of life. It does not hurt how wrong your philosophy of life may be, so long as you have one and have it well. The three great things are: GOOD HEALTH; WORK; and a PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. I may add, nay, must add, a fourth—SINCERITY. Without this, the other three are without avail; with it you may cleave to greatness and sit among the giants." [Getting Into Print (The Editor magazine, March 1903)]

Don’t interrupt when your characters take a flight of their own.

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in ... the edit." [Ten rules for writing fiction (part two), The Guardian, 20 February 2010]

Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.

Explore your inner creative genius through the medium you love and enjoy the journey!

Forget ideas, Mr. Author. What kind of pen do you use?

For you to reach a state of creative enlightenment, you must wage war on yourself, and start working. Only then will inspiration reward you with its presence.

Good writing ideas don’t have to be about political turmoil, mass killings, capitalism, racism, injustice, and so on. Find that one idea that has deep roots in your heart.

Help me, Lord, in times when I am uninspired to see things differently.

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

I am an artist. Any artist knows that their creations, their pieces must express an array of human emotion and experience. From the juvenile and innocent, to the erotic and the dangerous, and everything in between. Because Life is all of these things and more. It is the artist's divine purpose to reflect what Experience has shown them and others. What truly sets us apart from each other is whether or not we truly know ourselves enough to reflect objectively; but, through our own unique 'voice'.

I can still remember the miraculous feeling of writing a sentence, then more sentences, telling a story. The first thing I wrote was a one-page summary of Robinson Crusoe and I am so sorry I do not have it any more; it was at that moment I became an author." [As quoted in the author biography on Mankell's official website.]

I could write about how I feel when I sing, write and create something from heartbreak, sorrow, sadness or just simply nothingness. How nothingness can become the most beautiful, unexplainable feeling that makes you forget about gravity for an hour.

Ideas either age like fine wine or rot like potatoes over time.

Ideas, of course, have a place in fiction, and any writer of fiction needs a mind. But ideas are not the best subject matter for fiction. They do not dramatize well. They are, rather, a by-product, something the reader himself is led to formulate after watching the story unfold. The ideas, the generalizations, ought to be implicit in the selection and arrangement of the people and places and actions. They ought to haunt a piece of fiction as a ghost flits past an attic window after dark.