Fellow dreamers, ever feel as if you're stuck in the middle of a massive brain freeze when trying to formulate a brand spankin' new creative idea? If you've answered "yes" to my rhetorical question, then be sure to check out Mitch Ditkoff's 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas. These bits of information will come to rescue yourself from those nasty brain bubbles. Here are three of the fourteen ways that I found most helpful:
1. Follow Your Fascination- All of us are deeply intrigued by something, whether it be the wondrous forces of nature, the swirls on Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal or the amount of time it took animators to move Jack Skellington for just one second of film. Ditkoff advises us not to overrule any of our interests as silly or unimportant. Instead we need to embrace what makes us tick and use it to generate other ideas and concepts. He even suggests that those intriguing ideas are part of our individual calling since "the fascination felt for just one of them is a clue that there's something worthy of engagement." I truly believe that each of us is called to perform a greater task in life and that in order to find our destiny we must look further into developing our fascinations and expanding upon them to come up with an ingeniously creative idea.
4. Make New Connections- A television show about a talking sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea? When Stephen Hillenburg came up with this strange idea for a Nickelodeon show on a very low budget, who knew it would ever become a world phenomenon? The connection between something as imaginative and normally unrelated as an anthropomorphic sponge was formulated to create a truly ingenious idea. Ditkoff explains that we must not stay within the confines of our own little 'box' of what we are most comfortable with. We have to be wiling to break free of this box and express ourselves through things that are not interrelated. Make connections between different ideas and you'll be on your way to making the next worldwide phenomenon!
5. Fantasize- Be a dreamer. I know for a fact that daydreaming is my middle name. Ditkoff affirms that most ingenious ideas come from fantasizing about something great that you want to make happen to benefit yourself and others. How did J.K Rowling come up with the fantastical concept of Harry Potter? The answer: as she was DAYDREAMING on a train.You must set out and attempt the impossible and never miss your chance at conceiving an irrational yet inspiring idea and fulfilling it to your best ability. Be sure to make fantastic revelations and don't be afraid to take a tiny mental vacation every now and then (something that your teacher will never tell you). IMAGINATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS.
I chose to answer suggestion #5's prompt;"Think of a current challenge of yours. What would a fantasy solution to this challenge look like? What clues does this fantasy solution give you?
-One current challenge that I have is to come up with ideas for a screenplay that my 48 hour shootout team and I are conceiving. I am usually able to whip out my notebook and jot down some crazy bits ad pieces of notes that I am able to use for a story, but as of right now I am flat out of ideas. If it were up to me I would solve this problem by stopping time for a a few moments and just allow my mind to relax and process ideas without having to respond to any outside noise. The fantasy solution informs me that I tend to become too obsessed with coming up with new concepts for a film that I don't allow it to come naturally. I tend to over-think issues and I need to step back and let a screenplay hit me in the face (not literally of course, that would be painful). As I mentioned before, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series was spontaneously birthed as the author looked outside of her train window. I have had random 'idea spurts' in the past where I would think of lyrics to a new song or words to a new story as I was lying in bed. When these miraculous occurrences happen, I toss my warm blankets in the air, grab my glasses and head to my desk for any available writing utensil. Perhaps I need to stop wishing for another one of these moments and instead wait and see what the future has in store. On a side note, I have just rented out two phenomenal screenplays from the university library to aid me in my quest to create a great script; Sleepy Hollow and Back to The Future.
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