Flip the switch: Five experts show you how to get more creative now
Inspiration strikes when it wants to. But creative people know how to ignite the first spark. A comedian, sculptor, novelist, musician and filmmaker show us how
If you were to stumble upon filmmaker Koval Bhatia in the morning hours, you’d be surprised to find her staring at the blue wall in front of the writing-desk in her Goa home, doing seemingly nothing for hours. Bhatia, who made the award-winning documentary Against The Tide (2023) and the TV show Postcards from Arunachal (2021), had the wall specially painted the colour of the sky. “I wanted a feeling of openness, but without the distraction of a view,” she says. Staring at it allows her mind to wander. And if all else fails, it serves as a reminder that every day is a fresh start.
Creative thinking is practically a cottage industry these days. Jeff Bezos, former Amazon CEO, says he swears by the power of wandering – for him, that’s when the best ideas occur. Singer-songwriter Patti Smith, in her 2015 memoir, M Train, says that she prefers to write in bed, “as if I’m a convalescent in a Robert Louis Stevenson poem”. Every naive, aspiring writer has, at some point, tried to follow Haruki Murakami’s infamous 4am writing routine.
Creativity isn’t magic. It’s not a limited-edition drop from the gods. There’s no 10-step plan to becoming creative. It’s not something to become, anyway. “It’s a bit of a paradox,” says Vinita Mungi, Mumbai-based artist and sculptor. “Creativity is something we’re all born with, and yet it’s something we have to work on developing.” You can’t summon a flash of insight, but it’s possible to get better at coming up with good ideas. Here’s how artists do it.
Getting in the zone
Jose Covaco, stand-up comedian and someone who’s been producing funny videos for more than a decade, says being thrown into the deep end helps. “There are circumstances that force you to act or think in creative ways,” he says. Covaco was a radio jockey from 2002 to 2014. “They would just shove a microphone in front of us and be like, ‘Here you go. Now, figure it out’. That’s when I learnt to come up with content on the fly.” Being forced to think on his feet shaped the way he churned out ideas, he says. It’s probably why he’s turned everything from the day’s headlines to misheard lyrics into punchlines in his videos.
Breaking out of your own rut helps too. A 2023 research paper in the Journal of Indian Psychology suggests that creative ideas emerge when we expose ourselves to different sensory inputs. Novelist Novoneel Chakraborty, who’s written The Heartbreak Club (2024) and Heart on The Edge (2022), views change as a trigger. He deliberately frequents crowded coffee shops, malls and food courts to people-watch. “I go to with my laptop and pretend that I’m writing, but I’m actually doing my best to overhear what people are saying,” he says, with a conspiratorial laugh. “Once, a woman came up to me and started telling me her office problems. That was how the idea for The Stranger Trilogy was born. It’s a story of the relationship between a girl and a person who has no link to her.”
Make room for ideas and they’re more likely to drop in, says Bhatia. For her, it’s a particular block of time – a hour or so, mid-morning. “I spend this time either writing, thinking about writing, or doing nothing. Sometimes I journal about how much I don’t want to write!” She may not immediately be able to drum up ideas in the moment, but just the act of sitting in that confined space, with a blank document open on the computer, is motivation enough. “Sometimes, you’re sitting there every day, and nothing is happening. But by Day Five or Day 50, something will emerge.”
Singer and songwriter Mohammad Muneem Nazir, aka Alif, finds that he produces his best ideas when he’s worked himself into a particular state of mind. “You have to find that one thing that pushes you out of your comfort zone,” he says. “It can be an interesting word, a sentence that’s thought-provoking, the colour of the sky, or even life lashing out at you.” Recently, when he was stuck composing the middle section of the title track on his new EP, Ab Mujhe Ishq Karna Aata Hai, with Rekha Bhardwaj it was the word “junoon” that came to the rescue. “The whole song is about the seven stages of love. The sixth stage is junoon, or madness and obsession.” He used the word, and the passionate images and feelings it invokes, as inspiration for the sudden crescendo, the change in the key in that section.
Cracking it open
Some artists see creativity as innate; it only needs to be channelled well. Mungi’s sculptural work draws on post-colonial feminist themes. “I have to keep going back to my books to find new stories, ideas and information that I can develop into art into art,” she says. “But my medium, ceramics, is a slow one. It doesn’t leave room for ups and downs in the cycle of inspiration.”
So, she’s set up a system that allows her to work without distraction. “I organise my ideas, my mind and even my process. I do my research, I go to the studio, start on a new piece, finish it, and start my research again for the next piece. I don’t allow myself to reach a point where I don’t know what I am doing.” One of Mungi’s sculptures, The Habitat 2, was recently displayed at the biennial exhibition Homo Faber in Venice, Italy.
A 2021 study in the journal Cerebral Cortex found that creative ideas activate two regions of the brain: The part that’s responsible for executive functions such as problem-solving, and the part that’s active during mind-wandering or daydreaming. It explains why some people take a pragmatic approach to being creative.
Breaking the blockchain
It’s possible to run out of ideas or know that there’s a great one, frustratingly out of reach, Covaco admits. “There’s no escaping it – you have to just walk it out, sleep it off, or even just eat.” When he’s stuck, he uses himself as the test. “If it makes me laugh, it will make the audience laugh too. For me, it’s wanting to laugh. That’s the source of my ideas.”
Muneem’s way to fight mental stagnation is to literally chase a runner’s high. “I get out, I run. I run until there are no thoughts in my head. I run to get out of my own way.” And when he’s back in the studio, he finds that something’s shifted, the ideas flow better.
Chakraborty paces as he navigates plot points, character arcs, and timelines. “I talk to myself out loud. Hearing your own ideas spoken out loud helps you understand whether they make sense or not. I just make sure nobody is around!”
And sometimes, it’s just about being honest about what you’re avoiding. Bhatia, who was out of ideas for months, tried all her usual tricks. She rearranged her home furniture over and over before she admitted that it was just a way to put off work. “Writing is hard – it means confronting things you don’t want to confront,” she says. “But all good work is a function of persistence. Keep at it until everything you produce comes out kicking and screaming.”
From HT Brunch, December 07, 2024
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