by Naomi | May 1, 2017 | Writerly Play Activities
Visit the Writerly Play Studio and play your way into creative discoveries. Never heard of the WP Studio? Learn how Writerly Play thinking strategies supercharge your creativity here.
One of my first jobs was at Shanti Foundation for Peace in Evanston, IL. Indira Johnson, the artist-founder of the nonprofit, created many different kinds of community art, but my favorite was her work based on Rangoli drawing, in which women traditionally painted a pattern on the ground outside their homes. Family members would walk across this drawing each day, scattering the image, and in doing so, the blessing was spread across the community.
I had the honor of helping Indira with some of her community art sessions. We’d explore the meanings of a variety of shapes and then as a community draw a pattern that had meaning to our group. Then, the drawing would be transferred to the ground and filled in with bright spices and other materials. You can see some examples of final results here:
Community Blessings.
I came to understand that each shape has a different feel, and a different historic significance. Molly Bang explores the feeling of various shapes in her book,
Picture This: How Pictures Work. It’s a book I return to again and again because it takes this concept of shape down to the basic, underlying concepts. Molly’s images and clear explanations help me understand how shapes work in visual art, but also sparks thoughts about how shape shows up in my writing. What might the shape of a line, the shape of a poem, or the shape of a story add to (or take away from) my work?
Try This:
- Take out a few pieces of differently colored paper and cut out shapes. Cut some circles, squares, rectangles and triangles.
- Arrange your shapes into groupings. See if you can make groupings that have different tones. Can you make a calm grouping? A fierce grouping? A lazy grouping? A creative grouping?
- Choose one of your groups of images, and write a poem that captures that same tone.
- Arrange your shapes and words on a page, and then share your work with someone. Celebrate this small, creative act.
As always, I’d love to hear from you! Are there shapes that have particular meaning for you? How does shape show up in your work? Feel free to comment below, or connect with me on
Facebook or
Twitter.
by Naomi | Apr 27, 2017 | Creative Life
Have you heard of the
Napkin Academy? It’s a visual thinking online course by Dan Roam, author of
The Back of the Napkin and other insightful books. If you’re interested in significantly raising the quality of your thinking and learning life, you should check it out.
Among the many insights explored in his course, Dan highlights the fact that we remember ideas that have form. If ideas are vague or abstract, they slip out of our minds. For instance, when Google 2-Step Verification was introduced, it was a technical idea. Then, the idea of two-step security was explained with
a drawing containing two steps:
- Getting past a bear
- Escaping a snake pit
Yep! Now, with the image, we get it. Visual thinking isn’t about dumbing down concepts. It’s about making an idea memorable enough to stick.
Similarly, when I tried to better understand the creative process, and encountered abstract, scientific explanations and piles of activities, I was lost. When I finally shaped the process into a form—creativity as a ramble through five mental rooms filled with distinct thinking tools—everything came clear. Naming this creative hideout “
Writerly Play” gave further form to the idea. Each of the rooms has a different purpose, but together, they are all about story and a playful approach.
Creativity is messy, to be sure. However, if we allow ourselves to think of the process as formless, we can’t help but become lost along the way. When we make something new, we need handholds and footholds. We need structure that gives us room to experiment and make discoveries.
Finding the shape of an idea is harder than it appears. Once the challenging intellectual work has been done, the results seem simple, even obvious. However, in order to boil a complex idea down to its core, you have to wrestle through the complexity. You must break the concept into what is essential and what is secondary, down and down. You’re finished when you’ve found a shape for your idea that is simple, but still comprehensive.
What ideas are you trying to communicate right now? Consider your personal life, your creative work, your relationships, and your job. Are there thoughts you’re repeating over and over, with little result? Choose one concept you’ve tried to share recently. How might you give that concept shape?
Even if drawing isn’t your thing, when you’re shaping an idea, don’t be afraid to take out a pencil and doodle. Let your mind play with images and see what fits. Finding an idea’s shape is much more like solving a puzzle than it is like writing a definition. When you’re putting a puzzle together, you need to pick up pieces and try them out. Here, too, experimentation is your friend.
Once you’ve experimented, come on back and share! I’d love to hear the insights you gain by exploring the shape of your ideas. You can also connect with me on
Facebook and
Twitter.
Here’s to you and your creativity!
by Naomi | Mar 30, 2017 | Creative Life
When you ask the wrong questions, you end up with the wrong answers. Seems logical enough, right? Most of us don’t intentionally ask the wrong questions. However, just because we don’t intend to ask low-value questions doesn’t mean we don’t ask them.
Here are a few sneaky questions that might pop up from time to time:
- Why is everyone else succeeding faster than me?
- Why didn’t I get started on this project sooner?
- Why is this project so challenging?
- What should I do about this mess?
- When will things start working out?
- What’s wrong with me?
Questions such as these may seem like a tiny, not-so-helpful habit. The truth is, questions such as these can completely derail us. Why? Because our mind goes to work on solving the questions we feed it. So, instead of tackling our problems, our mind is doggedly mapping out wrong turns, or collecting reasons to support our unintentional belief that nothing is ever going to change in our lives.
It’s not enough to realize that these questions aren’t helping us.
Knowing we shouldn’t do something usually doesn’t stop us from doing it. In fact, if we focus on the questions we shouldn’t ask, we’ll end up being unable to avoid thinking about them. If, instead, we have a strategy to help us find more positive, helpful questions, we will have a clear way to address any negative questions that arise.
When you find yourself in a low-value question spiral, ask yourself:
- Is this question pointing out a real problem?
- If yes, move on to question two.
- If no, release the question and go do something playful or active. Move into a new, more optimistic space.
- What is the real problem?
- State the problem in clear language, such as “I’m frustrated with how long it is taking me to finish the script I’m writing.”
- Review your past experiences. When have you had a win in a similar situation?
- Think expansively. Maybe you’ve never finished a script before, but you have finished a project of some kind.
- Keep reviewing until you find three examples of (even loosely) similar wins and look for commonalities between the situations. What seems to work for you?
- Take note of situations where you definitely didn’t succeed. They may add an important element to your ultimate question.
- Shape what you’ve discovered into a clear, specific question.
- Your question might now sound like, “How might I give myself a motivating deadline that doesn’t make me feel like I can’t breathe?
- Brainstorm elements of this question so that you can break the problem into smaller, easy-to-handle questions.
- Answer your big question by tackling these smaller questions one at a time.
- Your set of questions might look like:
- WHY is this project important? What big-picture vision can I tap into? What will finishing this project mean for me and for others?
- WHAT are the milestones between where I am and my completed project?
- HOW LONG does it normally take me to write one scene?
- WHEN might I expect to be done, given the milestones I’ve determined and my regular writing speed?
- WHO might help me stick to my goal?
- WHERE might I get stuck? What strategies might I use to overcome my obstacles?
The right question can transform an impossible roadblock.
A set of questions such as this can turn a desperate plea such as “Why is this project so challenging?” into a manageable situation. However, unless you’re superhuman, it’s unlikely that your first impulse in the midst of a crisis is to ask productive questions. That’s why the first four steps are essential. Once you have gently moved yourself out of downward-spiral thinking into a more confident, optimistic space, you are able to tap into the wisdom that’s there, inside you, waiting to be uncovered. No one is as much an expert on you as YOU. You know what works for you and what doesn’t. All you need is the reliable process to help you find what you knew all along.
What unhelpful question have you been wrestling with lately? How might this process bring momentum to a blocked area of your life? Go ahead and try it out, and then come back and let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear your story. Tag me on Instagram or Twitter.
by Naomi | Mar 16, 2017 | Creative Life
I’ve made a discovery.
You probably made this discovery long before I did, but there’s a reason we say “I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” Sometimes we’re too close to something to see the big picture.
On the Writerly Play blog, I am writing about developing creativity, and about how story helps us see ourselves and our growth more clearly. Yet, at the heart of every post, whether I’m exploring practical strategies, playful activities or mindset, I’m actually writing about balance.
I’m writing about the space between.
In order for creativity to thrive, we need both structure and play. For instance, story provides a general structure, but playing within that structure makes a story unique, surprising, and engaging.
For the past couple weeks, I’ve been writing about visual literacy. I’ve been making a case for communicating a vision in a visual way. Now, I am swinging the pendulum back the other way in order to explore the power of language. Visual literacy is important, and so is verbal literacy. Both are creative. Both are powerful.
What matters is the balance between the two.
If we decide words ought to be avoided, that infographics are the communication medium of the future, we lose the complexity of beautifully well-crafted sentences. If, on the other hand, we insist on pages of unbroken text when an image would have made our meaning immediately clear, we’ve lost a significant point of connection.
Painting and drawing have been a part of my life since I was young, but my artistic medium, the one that fits just-so, is the medium of words. I love playing around with images, with music, with color and rhythm and yes, balance. But when I need to express an idea, to put it out into the world and share it, I turn to words.
Yesterday, I stumbled across a love letter. You may have already seen it, but if you haven’t, you absolutely must read Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s love letter to her husband. This letter is an exquisite example of the power of language. Reading it, I was reminded of the reason words matter to me so very much. It’s partially because of the way that carefully chosen words communicate. It’s also because our words can be gifts.
Our words have a little bit of magic in them.
Words can change the way a person sees herself or her situation. When her perception changes, her focus changes. Since our experience of life relies so heavily on where we place our attention, this shifting focus can change our life. Literally. And thus, words might as well be magic beans. When the circumstances are right, we can plant them in others’ lives and watch magic grow.
What will you do with your words today?
With my words, I enjoy planting the seeds of one question asked in a thousand different ways. What if we looked at it this way? Or that way? To balance, one must constantly make tiny adjustments. A life well-lived has this element of adjustment in it as well. Fresh perspective asks something of us. A new idea knocks us out of our comfort zone, swinging the pendulum toward the opposite pole. As we swing back and forth, we work at navigating a middle ground. This middle ground isn’t simple. Staying balanced in that space takes active, mindful work. And yet, playing in that tension-filled space, that’s the art of living life well. That active, mindful space is where Writerly Play lives.
I’d love to hear from you, on language, or images, or the space between. Share below, or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.
With love and creativity!
by Naomi | Mar 7, 2017 | Creative Life
Visual thinking is a superpower that is often:
a. under utilized
or
b. completely ignored
Now, if you’re thinking–Visual thinking is for illustrators or architects, maybe for children, but not for me—stick with me for a moment. Growing up, I’ll bet that you struggled (at least a little) with either letters or numbers. If a teacher had allowed you to give up, saying, “I’m not a math person,” or “I simply can’t read,” you’d have breathed a sigh of relief at the time. But, consider what would have happened if you had opted out of math or reading and writing entirely. We know that the ability to think in numbers or to think in letters is key. However, somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten the importance of thinking in images. We’ve allowed over half of the adult population to believe untruths such as, “I can’t draw.”
Why is visual thinking important?
Sunni Brown, author of the fantastic book, The Doodle Revolution, puts it this way: “A doodler is connecting neurological pathways with previously disconnected pathways. A doodler is concentrating intently, sifting through information, conscious and otherwise, and–much more often than we realize–generating massive insights.”
Howard Gardner identified visual intelligence as one of many intelligences. Linguistic intelligence and mathematical/logical intelligence are also on that list. It is true that different brains have different strengths. However, the fact that I don’t have a naturally mathematical brain does not negate my need to think and conceptualize in numbers. Linguistic skill is obviously key to my capacity as an author and the Executive Director of a literary nonprofit, but numbers are also a daily part of my work. I’m grateful for teachers who insisted I not give up on numbers simply because I did not have a strong inclination toward them.
The point is, many of us have decided we aren’t comfortable with visual thinking and thus, we’ve dismissed an entire literacy that could have been at our disposal. We’ve dismissed thinking in images because it is for other people or worse, childish. We’ve given ourselves permission to not conceptualize big ideas in sketch form, or via visual metaphor. We’ve limited our capacity for thinking big thoughts because … why? For most of us, it comes down to the ability to draw.
Most adults are afraid to draw.
Somewhere along the way, maybe in elementary school, someone pointed out that our horse didn’t really look like a horse. We noticed that our lines were wavy or our circles were lopsided. We expected ourselves to be photo-realistic artists, and for the most part, we expected this to happen instantly, magically, with no official training or concerted practice.
For the record, in order to think visually, you do NOT have to be an amazing artist. In fact, if you don’t want to, you never have to show your doodles to anyone else. However, I’d strongly, strongly encourage you to take a month and play around with doodling. See what comes out of it, and if you aren’t seeing results after giving it a real try, then let it go. My bet, though, is that you will be a visual thinking convert.
Visual thinking will help you in many ways.
If you’re willing to give this a go, I’d highly recommend your checking out Sunni Brown’s book. She provides research, inspiration for the mindset needed and practical strategies–everything you will need for your experiment. If you need a little nudge, though, here are some reasons why visual thinking will absolutely help you.
- When you draw, you externalize your thinking. We can only focus on a thought for a short amount of time before it is gone. Drawing a concept out on paper allows us to stick with the idea, to follow it where it leads.
- Images tap into figurative thinking. In order to make a concept, say freedom, into an image, we have to answer the question, What does freedom look like? This question, in and of itself, is useful as it brings new thinking to the table. When we nail down abstract thinking into concrete images, we start to see a path between our goal and what it might look like in real life.
- Images communicate quickly. There’s a reason for the explosion of infographics as of late. We can absorb information laid out in a combination of words and images much more quickly than we can read and comprehend long paragraphs (such as the paragraphs that make up this blog post, much to my chagrin)!
Need a tiny extra nudge?
Listen to your language over the next couple weeks. Notice if you use phrases such as, “I can’t see it happening,” or “If I could just see my workload,” or in response to a colleague’s idea, “What will that look like?” These phrases are clues that you are a visual thinker. You want to be able to mentally see something. Though your imagination is a strong tool for doing so, bringing that image out into the physical world will be even more inspirational. What you can imagine, you can draw. What you can draw, you can see. What you can see, you can make practical. And what you can make practical, you can make happen.
What does the superpower of visual thinking accomplish? Visual thinking will help you imagine ideas, see them, and bring them to life. Not too shabby as superpowers go, right?
My challenge to you is this:
Give yourself a month to play around with visual thinking. Use The Doodle Revolution if books help you explore new ideas. If not, simply take out pencil and paper and sketch the next time you’re planning or brainstorming. Conceptualize with a combination of words and images. Even when you don’t have pencil and paper in hand, play the “What does that look like?” game. Picture concepts such as creativity or hope in image form. Then, once you’ve played around, come back and share what you’ve noticed or learned. Or share with me on Facebook or Twitter. Let’s learn together! I can’t wait to chat with you. As you can probably tell, this is a subject of intense passion for me.
Here’s to you and your creative insights!
