So, I am recuperating from another Saturday night spent out with some friends having fun and staying up way too late. My back kind of hurts, my stomach isn’t upset really but maybe a little mad, and I am crazy tired.  But I had a really fun time and spent the evening with a couple of people who make me laugh – which I prize highly in the people I know. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China, you ask? Well, nothing… but it does have something to do with the well of creativity and where ideas come from, which is what I’ve been thinking a lot about this week.

I have always written. I’m one of those people who knew from a very early age what I wanted to do. Oh I went through brief periods as a very young girl or wanting to be a ballerina… or a vet. And I toyed with the idea as an adult of doing something else as a career. But even in those various scenarios, I always wrote… just not for a living. I have this very distinct memory of being six, maybe seven, and going with my mother to visit a friend of hers. We spent the better part of the afternoon there, and for the most of that time I was sitting at the kitchen table with a pencil and some paper, writing a story. It was called The Rainbow Maker, and it was about a world where no color existed and a woman who was a scientist/witch who concocted colors in a cauldron in her basement. I still have it somewhere.

So, I have always written. But recently I have entered one of the most prolific periods of my life, and it occurred to me to really examine why. Why are the words and ideas coming easier and more often now than they seemingly ever have? What’s the difference between now, and before? Well, to answer that we need to address the Dreaded Question:

Where do you get your ideas?

Well, where do we? Lately, I’ve begun to think of it a bit like a well somewhere deep inside of me. The well of creativity. And every person has this well, I think. We dip down the bucket when we are in need of an idea. The difference between us all is what comes when we draw the bucket up. Whether it’s an idea for a story, or a piece of music, or a mathematical formula, or whatever. Maybe you’re an architect and you dip into the well for a building design, or a chef dipping in for recipe, or a scientist dipping in for that certain tweak of a chemical composition. You send down your bucket and see what comes up.

And of course, what comes up depends on what’s down there, right? So, say we all have somewhat of a natural wellspring of ideas. Sometimes it trickles, and sometimes it gushes. But just the wellspring doesn’t fill the well. There’s rain too…  and that’s where friends, family, and community come in. Spending a night with good friends, having a few drinks and laughing and being silly? There’s a sudden summer storm. A passing comment from an online buddy? A light spring shower. A deep discussion with some fellow writer friends? A downpour. And each drop fills up that well a little more. And it raises the water table too, which makes your own wellspring flow stronger. And each bucket you draw up is now brimming with fresh ideas.

So, lately I’ve been listening to awesome writer podcasts like The Dead Robots’ Society or Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing. I’ve been interacting in the podcast community, emailing the writers of the podiobooks I enjoy and reviewing them on iTunes. I joined up with the awesomely creative folks over at The Creative Alliance. Even just sharing a joking back-and-forth on Twitter, chatting on Skype or Messenger, or going out for a few beers with some friends from work… all of these things have been filling my well. And not only that, but putting me in a frame of mind to want to dip into it more often. And it is delicious and refreshing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 9th, 2010 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.