2013: A year of mapping the creative process

So, my birthday was yesterday (and between mouth-watering Ichi Sushi and karaoke at El Rio, it was a lot of fun). Thank you, excellent friends!

You may wonder why this blog is called Greenhouser, and it’s because I’m interested in the process of growing ideas, artistic or otherwise, and cultivating them until they’re ready to bloom like crazy out in the world.

As I’ve been thinking about the year ahead of me, and what might be next, I find myself going back to an idea I’ve had for a while – to do a bunch of research about the nature of creativity, the ways in which people successfully gain traction on their ideas, and how I can help both myself and others create a creative process that is happy and healthy. Like many people, my own creative history is littered with the skeletons of unfinished projects, and a creative process that allows me to be pretty darn productive, but at the expense of hurling myself against deadlines like thorned gates. I’d like to find a better balance that allows me to spend more of my time creating, whilst also letting me sleep the week that something is due. (Dream on? Perhaps. ) I’d also love to have a larger reserve of pedagogical ideas to help guide students through the perils of first coming up with a good idea, and then bringing it to energetic life.

So this will be the year of trying out different workflows. I’ll be reading everything from self-help books on creativity (even if they make me cringe) to memoirs and biographies, from books on neuroscience to monographs, as well as interviewing creative people of all stripes and seeking out films, videos, music, art, poetry, and of course a highly curated collection of web resources. Clearly, what works for some people (Colette) is poison to others (Truman Capote, pictured above), but hopefully sketching a terrain of best creative practices (no matter how meandering the cartography) will be helpful.

It’s a big fun experiment, and I’ll be reporting back here regularly. Wish me luck! Share with any friends who might be curious. And please let me know if there’s anything I’ve just got to read/watch/listen to/etc.

P.S. Am I just old, or does 2013 sound like a futuristic robot year?