#35: Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!
Show Notes\n\nSummary:\nEpisode #35:\xa0Want to Be a More Creative Writer? Get Curious!\n\nCuriosity can distract us from our work and disrupt our productivity. Curiosity can tempt us to waste time watching Buzzfeed and Upworthy videos, discover our friends' latest Facebook updates, tag trends on Twitter, and obsessively check weather reports.\n\nBut curiosity is a powerful force\u2014an energizing force\u2014that can fuel our creativity if we lasso its power and funnel it in the right direction. Curiosity can lead us new ways of looking at the world, new people who can guide and inspire us. Curiosity can lead us to new books, new blogs, new podcasts, new poems, new ideas. Curiosity sends us in search of answers to questions, and solutions to problems. Curiosity is key to creativity.\n\nThis month, I hosted the Play Project,\xa0where I encouraged people to engage in playful activities, to add fun to their days. Though I haven\u2019t really linked the two ideas during the PlayProject, play and curiosity are complementary concepts. Curiosity leads us to trying new things, exploring new places, meeting new people, creating something artistic\u2014all playful activities.\n\nSee how all three of those go together: play, creativity, and curiosity? Writers who integrate these three things into their lives fill their minds with fresh ideas and images and fuel their creative energy. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, long-form or short, poetry or blog posts, you can lasso curiosity to be a powerful force in your writing life.\n\nTodd Kashdan, author of Curious?, writes, "While intelligence is quite resistant to change, curiosity can be cultivated, and it is available to anyone who desires a fulfilling life" (37).\n\nAnd Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow, explains:\nEach of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation...and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk. We need both. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement, the second can wilt if it is not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished. Sustaining high levels of curiosity is the starting point of creativity...the first step toward a more creative life is the cultivation of curiosity and interest, that is, the allocation of attention to things for their own sake.\nWe need to cultivate this daily. A playful mindset can shake us out of our predictability and increase curiosity in our everyday lives.\n\nMihaly says, \u201cWhen there's nothing specific to do, our thoughts soon return to the most predictable state, which is randomness or confusion. We pay attention and concentrate when we must \u2026 But when there is no external force demanding that we concentrate, we lose focus. Our mind falls to the lowest energetic state, where the least amount of effort is required."\n\nLearning to be more curious helps us focus on our work and our ideas with fresh perspective and increased creativity.\n\nWell, I hope you\u2019re convinced that curiosity is worth developing and practicing.\n\nBut how do we get there?\n\nMihaly has some suggestions. To get more curious:\n\n \ttry to be surprised by something every day\n \ttry to surprise at least one person everyday\n \twrite down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others\n \twhen something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.\n\nThat right there is key to fueling our creativity when we're working on our writing projects. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it. It\xa0lead you to a new project, it can lead you to a new solution to something you're stumped with, it can energize you when you're feeling kind of...in a slump.\n\nLet me leave you with this quote I found at\xa0Brain Pickings. It's from\xa0Susan Sontag:\nDo stuff.