Guest Post: Creativity by Johanna K. Pitcairn

Linzé: It is my pleasure to welcome Johanna to my blog today. She is the first guest blogger for the year. Welcome, Johanna! 

Johanna: First and foremost, thanks for the opportunity to be featured on your blog. Every indie author needs all the support they can get, and I’m very grateful for all the support I’ve received and am receiving. 

 I love these two quotes about creativity: 

“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been.” Robert Bresson

And 

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” Edwin Land. 

So being creative means you gotta jump in the ravine, not knowing whether your chute is gonna work. But maybe you’ll find an invisible bungee cord on the way, or a bouncy mushroom. Safely, you will land in a foreign territory populated by tiny elves whose specialty is to bake really huge pumpkin pies. You don’t like pumpkin pie, but the elf leader insists you must have a bite, or you’ll choke on your own air within fifteen seconds. You eat a piece, and immediately, the world becomes this fairytale scenery, with a huge castle and tons of servants, and you wearing a very expensive outfit, and sitting on a throne made of candy canes. And you hear this little voice that keeps asking: “Dad, what’s for breakfast?”

Take an idea and fly with it. Make it not ten, but a million times bigger. And if you crash, at least you’ll know the idea didn’t work. Self-doubt is the biggest enemy of creativity. A creative mind takes risks, and has fun in the process. You look at things in a different way, and break established patterns. 

I’ll finish with this beautiful quote from Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” 

So be creative, and pass it on. I heard creativity was contagious.

Linzé: Look out for Johanna's book feature tomorrow. True creativity in action!