WAYS TO GET IDEAS

It must be important, because it's capitalized!

WAYS TO GET IDEAS!

As the title suggests, this article is all about the art of stimulating one's creative juices. Written by Mitch Ditkoff, he explores fourteen different suggestions for getting awesometastic ideas. The article is well-written, interesting, and in my opinion brings up many valid suggestions and approaches towards generating ideas. I found myself nodding as read it, thinking, Oh, that makes sense. I can definitely see how that would work!

• One suggestion Ditkoff brings up, #2 on his list, is to Immerse Yourself. We're often so caught up with whatever we're doing that when an idea starts bubbling in the back of our mind, we tell it, not now, I'm busy. And then by the end of the day, chances are we've forgotten it. How can we avoid this? By setting aside time for our ideas and our creativity. Time to just muse. In fact, says Ditkoff, Google employees are given "20% of their time to immerse in projects that have seemingly nothing to do with their so-called 'day job.'" Immersing yourself in whatever interests you is vital to boosting your creativity and dreaming up new ideas. I think one way I could implement this idea into my own life would be to grab a coffee up at the Donkey after my classes every day and just sit outside (now that it's getting warmer) and focus on nothing but my imagination for maybe an hour or so. This hour would be solely "me" time, and it would give me an excuse to not have to worry about anything. 
• Another suggestion of Ditkoff's is Taking a Break (#8 on his list). When your're struggling with a problem, Ditkoff says the best thing you can do is to walk away from it, let your brain focus on something else. This has actually been scientifically proven to help, which is why I definitely think it is a good suggestion. Working and slaving away at a problem that is fighting you only wearies your brain and clogs up your thinking process. But if you walk away from it for a while and let your brain recharge, you are much better prepared to re-tackle the problem. My parents make stained glass windows and mosaics for a living, and my mom has often told me that if she sits too long working on a design, she finds herself in an art-block. Her solution is to go for a walk, and she says it always helps. Luckily, Athens is a pretty compact community -- you can walk to pretty much anywhere from campus. So when I get in a slump trying to do homework, I often just get up and go out for a walk, exploring new parts of Athens I've never seen before. Just getting out helps. 
• A third suggestion from Ditkoff's "Ways to Get Ideas" is #10: Hang Out With Diverse Groups of People. If you're a media major and you spend your time with no one but other media majors, you will only ever hear the opinions of like-minded people. However, if you join other groups, you will start hearing the thoughts and opinions of all sorts of people. This in turn will help you view problems with a much broader understanding. It really enriches your understanding of the world. I try to hang out with as diverse a group of individuals as possible. I'm double-majoring in Theater and Video Production, minoring in Studio Art, a member of the Marching 110 (which is filled with all sorts of majors), I attend Vegan Cooking Workshops on Tuesdays (I'm not vegetarian myself, but I like cooking), my best friend is a pre-vet major, and I have been a member of a Shakespeare acting troupe since my freshman year of high school. As I continue through my education at OU, I hope I can keep expanding my circles and acquaintances. 

I decided to try out suggestion #4: Make New Connections. At the end of this suggestion, Ditkoff offers a prompt: "Make three parallel lists of ten words. The first list? Nouns. The second list? Verbs. The third list? Adjectives. Then look for intriguing new connections between them." 

I have been working on a webcomic based around a circus, so I thought I'd use this to see if I could invent some unique acts to explore through the story. These were my lists: 

NOUNS: fiddles, juggling balls, elephants, jewelry, clowns, hoops, tight-ropes, tomatoes, shoes, swords

VERBS: juggle, conduct, throw, set afire, tip over, paint, skip, balance, stand on, lasso

ADJECTIVES: spiky, radiant, spinning, blindfolded, under-water, giant, smoking, heavy, grouch, muddy

The combinations I came up with included:

• stand on smoking elephants
• skip on spiky tight-ropes
• juggle heavy shoes
• set afire to giant, spinning hoops
• stand on muddy hoops
• paint under-water clowns
• throw radiant swords
• juggle giant fiddles
• balance muddy tomatoes
• lasso smoking juggling balls
• conduct grouchy, spinning clowns

I definitely think I will implement these bizarre acts into my webcomic, and I would not have ever made these sort of connections if I hadn't done this activity. It definitely helped me make interesting and creative connections.