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[Ep 211]\n\n\n\nCreativity as a pillar of the writing life? It\u2019s a no-brainer. Creativity and writing go together like pencil and paper.\n\nWriters practice creativity each and every day.\n\nBut when we think about creative writing and a creative writer, our minds may turn toward MFA programs. After all, that\u2019s where you study creative writing.\n\nI hate the potential implication\u2014that other kinds of writing are not creative.\nWho's a Creative Writer?\nCreative writing instructors and programs offer teaching and training that nudge students toward an approach\u2014a mindset and practice\u2014different from that of writers who focus more on, say, blogging or marketing. Certainly MFA students gain skills that prepare them for a rewarding, challenging writing life\u2014one that matches their goals to write and produce literary work.\n\nBut I believe those who write corporate brochures and articles about succulents are also creative writers, even if they didn\u2019t graduate with an MFA or land their work in respected literary journals. Bloggers and copywriters can also practice a rewarding, challenging creative writing life that matches their goals.\n\nWhen you write, you\u2019re creating.\n\nIf you write, you create.\n\nThus, creativity is a pillar of the writing life.\n\nOn the flip side, all writers\u2014even published authors who have completed MFA programs\u2014are capable of producing somewhat stagnant, occasionally derivative, work.\n\nWe don\u2019t want that.\n\nSo how can any writer\u2014all writers\u2014practice creativity? How can we be more creative to enjoy our best writing lives?\n\nEntire books have been written about the topic, so I can\u2019t tackle everything. But here are a few thoughts to get us started.\nWhat Is Creativity?\nFirst, it might help to establish a definition of creativity, but that\u2019s harder than you might think.\n\nResearchers and experts and writers have been trying to pin it down, and no one seems to agree. I haven\u2019t located one single definition (unless we would turn to Merriam-Webster). What I\u2019ve spotted are words and phrases tossed around that we can consider:\n\n \t\n\n \toriginality (this comes up a lot)\n \tsurprise (which we talked about regarding curiosity)\n \tauthenticity (important for writers to practice)\n \tdiscovery (including making connections)1\n\n\n\nWhether these words reflect the process of creating or the finished product itself\u2014that is, the thing created\u2014they give us a hint of what it means to be creative: what it means to create.\nLearning from Other Creatives\nI\u2019ve written before of how we can learn from the greats, studying writers we admire, even copying passages to learn techniques. We may find inspiration in their creative process and integrate elements into our own space and our own routines.\n\nBut why limit ourselves to learning from other writers? We may work in the world of words, but we can learn from other domains:\n\n \tWriters can learn from the creativity of scientists to continually ask questions, experiment, dig deeper, analyze, draw conclusions, and try again.\n \tWriters can learn from visual artists how color, form, and texture engage the senses and drive decisions.\n \tWriters can learn from actors how working with the constraints of the stage and the script, we can make numerous choices that affect a performance and its effect on the audience.\n\nJulia Cameron\u2019s Artist Dates encourage outings to step out of our writing hovels and step into other spaces, whether a museum or yarn shop, an antique emporium or international grocery store.\n\nFrom this new set of sensations and input, we build a network of possible connections, with one idea linking to another and another to form a new, novel concept that sidesteps the standard, mainstream mindset to discover original thoughts all our own as we become more creative.\nCreative Inspiration\nWe not only learn from these other domains, we also amass new images and sensory experiences we can drop into our projects, deepening or expanding what we might have pulled toget...