Scratching for Ideas

Sep 29, 2011 by cara moulds

The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.

- Twyla Tharp

I call it moodling and I wrote about it in our ezine and in the Letter. In The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp calls it “scratching” – that stage in the creative process when you’re looking for an idea. The most common way to “scratch” for an idea is by reading. I do this all the time. I find inspiration from reading blogs, which I subscribe to either by email or in a reader to view in Flipboard on my iPad. It’s beautiful, like reading a magazine.

Tharp suggests that we “never scratch the same place twice.” I don’t really agree with that; some blogs I read regularly and others I only catch up on periodically. Places I regularly find inspiration are Gwen Bell, Chookoloonks, Zen Habits, White Hot Truth, Dave Ursillo, Shutter Sisters, Abraham-Hicks, TUT. I am also always reading at least one book, sometimes more than one at a time, and almost always on my kindle. Then I can read wherever I am, even on my cell phone when I find myself with a few spare minutes between errands. Lately I’ve been reading Super Rich, The Divine Feminine Fire, What the Bleep Do We Know? and Manifesting Change. I also try to read fiction that inspires me, and for that I would highly recommend my latest find, Out Stealing Horses.

Another great way to “scratch” for ideas is from conversations and people-watching. I love to go to a cafe and pretend to be engrossed in my own writing while I’m really transcribing the entire conversation from the table closest to me. There’s no greater way to learn to write the way people actually talk than by eavesdropping. I also love to people-watch and make up stories about them. Some are ridiculous and outlandish, others are tragic, still others are mundane and boring -which is probably closer to the truth, but which provides an opportunity for great psychoanalysis and character development. I sometimes think Anne Tyler‘s characters could have been crafted just that way, sitting in a cafe watching ordinary people doing ordinary things.

Scratching is where creativity begins. It is the moment where your ideas first take flight and begin to defy gravity. If you try to rein it in, you’ll never know how high you can go. – Twyla Tharp

Scratching for ideas is fun and invigorating, playful and productive.