New Ways To Create - 5 Ideas To Help You Experiment, Liberate And Reach Beyond!

Sometimes in our creative work, we want to focus on one particular project, get our heads down and create feverishly until it's done, channelling all of our creative energy, and spending all our time, in this one direction.

This can produce excellent results, and by getting into a state of narrow blinkered focus, and blocking out all outside distractions we can achieve huge amounts in a short space of time. We're in the flow and creating comes easily, instinctively and fluidly.

Other times though, the rate of progress we make isn't what's most important.

Whatever medium we're creating in at any one time, it can be easy and very productive to get into a strong flow, but also dangerously easy to get in a creative rut.

Productivity, and finding the methods, environments and routines that work well for our creativity is one thing. But becoming a human photocopier and churning out almost identical pieces of creative work time and time again is something else entirely.

Anyone who's committed to progressing and evolving creatively must be prepared to experiment.

The only way we can find new ways to create, new forms and new ways of expressing our creativity is to try different things.

Let's take the example of a writer. It could be argued that writing just a couple of lines in a completely different style, form or language is actually a whole lot MORE creative than writing another whole book that follows virtually the same structure and story as their previous 3 have.

This same principle applies to whatever form you create in.

So think about how you can begin to experiment and evolve your creativity, whether it's within one particular medium or maybe across a whole host of different creative media.

Here are 5 quick ideas to give you new ways to create:

1. Creating in a busy place. Go somewhere where there's lots of people. Take your notebook, sketchbook, or laptop and just create in reaction to the environment around you, imagining the stories and complex lives behind the faces of the people nearby. This is a brilliant way of prompting our imagination and creativity into new directions.

2. Create in collaboration. Ask a friend or creative colleague to be involved in a creative collaboration. For example you could writing a story together. You could get together and combine ideas and sentences, or create via email or letter, alternate between writing a few words, sentences or pages each before sending it on to the other person for their next contribution.

3. Create backwards. Start from the end of the project, get a clear idea of how it will end, then work back to a beginning point. In a piece of writing this is fairly straightforward, but in a more visual medium this could be more challenging, but still entirely possible if you're willing to explore and experiment.

4. Create a parallel vision. Start two new pieces of creative work at the same time. Each step you take with the first, do something that's opposite with the second. For example, you may start one new piece of music with a strong insistent heavy beat. You could start the other with a random scattering beat, or a light pretty melody. Both can be seen as opposite to what you started with. Then add the next layer to the first piece, and something opposite to the second and so on.

5. Create left-handed (Or right-handed if you're left-handed.) With anything involving your hands - painting, writing by hand, playing an instrument - this can be very liberating and gives a totally different outlook on your ideas. If your creating is not affected by which hand you use, trying creating in mirror image, approaching everything from the opposite side of where you'd normally want to go.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about how you can experiment with your creativity. Remember each time you try something new, it changes and enriches the way you create.