☞ Narrative is often associated with creativity. It is generally assumed that one is involved with creativity if one engages in narrative: narrative journalism, for example, is quite often regarded as “creative non-fiction” and not merely another mode of, or approach to, journalistic writing. Also, as some of the posts on this blog illustrate, one need not be extraordinarily creative for narrative to do its job in our everyday lives, or, for it to perform a function in seemingly non-creative activities, such as the buying and selling of goods and services. But the association is there, even if one wants to contextualise and question the extent of their linkage. In this regard, an article on creativity is certainly useful in helping us arrive at a richer and more multi-faceted understanding of narrative.
“1. You are creative. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. Once you have a particular identity and set of beliefs about yourself, you become interested in seeking out the skills needed to express your identity and beliefs. This is why people who believe they are creative become creative. If you believe you are not creative, then there is no need to learn how to become creative and you don’t. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new. When someone tells you that they are not creative, you are talking to someone who has no interest and will make no effort to be a creative thinker.
2. Creative thinking is work. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then you must have patience to persevere against all adversity. All creative geniuses work passionately hard and produce incredible numbers of ideas, most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems were written by the major poets than by minor poets. Thomas Edison created 3000 different ideas for lighting systems before he evaluated them for practicality and profitability. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced more than six hundred pieces of music, including forty-one symphonies and some forty-odd operas and masses, during his short creative life. Rembrandt produced around 650 paintings and 2,000 drawings and Picasso executed more than 20,000 works. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. Some were masterpieces, while others were no better than his contemporaries could have written, and some were simply bad. …”
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