tjwithersauthor

Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes”

Last year I did a subject that asked us as creators to answer two questions: “Why do we create?” and “How do we create?” You have to love Creative Industries assessments.

Mocking aside, however, these two questions are vital to understand if you intend to be creative successfully, or be creative for a living… or both.

The reflective waffle which was our first assessment piece answered the first question, and I’ll post that shortly. Literally. The short answer after much research and navel-gazing amounts, almost universally, to: “We create because it’s fun.” Bronowski says that humans do not choose to create unless they enjoy the process (1985, p 245).

However, the second question led into hours of delightful research, culminating in a research essay. My task was to argue that, although there are differences between the disciplines of art, design, and media, these differences do not affect the fundamental process of creativity, and that this creates links between these disciplines.

What follows is my summary of the parts of my research related to one part of the traditional creative process: the incubation stage. The full text of the research essay is available on my Full text research essays page.

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Hi, my name is Tirzah, and I’m a write-aholic. The last time I wrote was 14 hours ago, and I’m getting withdrawal symptoms already.

So you can understand why I decided to write a blog about the writing process.

I think I’m really a researcher at heart. I enjoy sorting things, finding things out – almost more even than making things. Last year I conducted a survey of all my “creative” friends asking two main questions: “Why do we create?” and “How do we go about creating?”

I’ll be posting the results of said survey shortly, but for now, it’s enough that my intention is out there, in the void of the intertubes. I hope you enjoy the anticipation of what is to come… The suspense may just kill me.