6.4: Creativity and Play

Having an attitude of play can help writers to be more open to creativity, and increased creativity means that ideas are likely to flow more easily. Reflective activities, such as journaling, can also lead to creative new insights. While taking time to play with words or reflect on ideas may seem like a distraction from the work of writing a paper, building
one’s creative fluency tends to save time in the long run.

An example of how taking the time to do some reflective writing can lead to new ideas is illustrated in the following journal entry:

July 4, 2009

Invention is more than a set of techniques—it’s an
attitude and an openness to inviting new ideas and
experiences into our lives. A willingness to approach
writing playfully, without allowing concerns about
grades and even the final outcome to intrude into
the time and space set aside for that thinking and
play is ironically an important practical step in the
work of writing. Writing certainly can be hard work,
and while that may make having an open and exploratory
approach to writing challenging, the play
really is part of the work. This is a paradox, but the
key to accepting it, I think, is often a matter of giving
ourselves permission to be less than serious during
the process of creating a serious outcome. Cultivating
play is basically practicing generating ideas and trying
out new approaches and ways of thinking, which

is what is most needed when trying to get a piece of
writing started.

Play, and giving oneself the permission to play, is also
part of lessening anxiety, since worry about how a
text will or will not turn out in the end, or how it
will be evaluated, can lead one to second-guess one’s
work. I often feel like writing is like building a house
of cards—when I’m focused on putting one card on
top of the others, the house gets built, but when I start
worrying about whether it is good enough, whether
readers will like it or not, how long it needs to be,
or whether I can finish or not, it’s like the wind that
comes along and blows the house of cards apart, all
collapsing in on itself. Some patterns of thinking are
not helpful during the early phases of a writing project.
It’s important to catch these negative patterns
and purposefully move oneself back into the mindset
of building the house.

What I did when writing these last few paragraphs was to think of the first sentence, and then write to elaborate on it. Be open to the possibility that a text, especially during its generative moments, does not need to conform to a traditional format. Give yourself permission to write an early draft that is a combination of prose, snippets of thoughts, images, or even audio or video, if you have access to those technologies.

It might be helpful to think of your early work on a text as a collection of all sorts of documents and items. Don’t limit yourself just to paper. Let your thinking grow, without regard to traditional formats. Once you have a grasp on the ideas and direction for your writing, you can make the final draft fit the guidelines you have been given
and the expectations of your audience. Working with non-traditional formats can be helpful when generating ideas for a traditional paper assignment.