Creatively Speaking – Solo Inspiration vs. Social Inspiration

If you do anything creative in life – and I believe most of us do, whether it’s for a living, or for fun – you know everything creative starts with an idea … but where do ideas come from?

While thinking about what inspires my own creative bursts I realized the ways I get inspired fall into two distinct categories – solo inspiration, and social inspiration.

A few of the things I do for inspiration are unique to writing about music, but I feel the majority of them are universal.

With that in mind, today I’m sharing some of my methods of cultivating creativity!

The following are three ways I find inspiration on my own, three ways I find inspiration with others, and the one thing they all have in common.

Solo Inspiration 

Reading

 

I’m a voracious reader. Every year my local library (Pequot) holds a gigantic summer book sale, and I usually pick up around a dozen books, and then come back for their smaller winter, and spring sales to pick up more.

I’d say at least 50% of my reading material is either musician autobiographies, or music history books. Obviously, as a music journalist, learning something new can send my mind racing, and eventually lead to an article … or quite a few music purchases, and then an article.

Going for a walk 

I think we’ve all heard someone who’s feeling overwhelmed say they’re going for a walk to clear their head. Well guess what, you don’t have to wait until you’re on the edge of burnout to lace up your sneakers, and take a lap around the block.

When my gym moved to being under a mile from my home I began walking there, rather than driving. To me, a guy who has plenty of NYC in his bloodstream, the idea of driving under a mile seems insane. What I discovered very quickly was that those walks became fertile ground for both new ideas, and for expanding on article ideas I was already working on. I can’t tell you how many times a headline has come to me on one of those walks.

Oh, and for the record, I’m not walking through an idyllic forest, I’m walking more through a suburban meets urban landscape. So while walking through a woodland area Disney animators would’ve come up with in the 1950s might seem ideal, don’t sell the power of a walk in your own neighborhood short. Heck, even a walk to the corner store could do the trick!

Train rides

 

This one might sound strange to those who consider a commute some sort of purgatory – not actually living life, not actually at work – but once you shed that notion you’ll see a lot of potential in a commute. Essentially, it’s an entire hour – more or less – to yourself. Some people read, some people watch TV on their phone (I’ll never understand that one), and while I’ll occasionally bring a book on the train, more often than not I like to just sit, sip on whatever I’m drinking, and let my mind wander.

When a random thought comes to me that I think I might want to come back to, and could potentially be turned into an article, I jot it down in the Notes app in my phone, and then get back to my Metro-North meditation.

As my friend Carly Pearl likes to sing, “I’m a human being, not a human doing,” and sometimes all you need to get your creative energy going in the right direction is to simply allow yourself to just be.

Social Inspiration 

Going to shows

 

I guess this one’s pretty obvious for me.

I love checking the calendars of my favorite venues, seeing a bill with three or four bands I’ve never heard of, and heading out to see if I can discover something new, and exciting.

A recent show I attended at Arlene’s Grocery resulted in two artist interviews, one show review, and another artist interview that will happen sometime in the near future. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Even when it turns out I don’t want to write about any of the bands, just the act of being there, in the crowd, and seeing people’s reactions, can spark an idea for an article. Heck, I’ve even written about things that have come up in conversation with the bartender!

Speaking of which …

Conversations with friends 

Whether we’re talking about music, or talking about life, extended conversations with friends are always fertile ground for ideas.

Perhaps it’s because we’re usually sharing things we care about, perhaps it’s because there’s a mutual respect, perhaps it’s because we’re each inspiring the other to think, whatever it is, a good conversation with a friend will always get the mind going.

Going to record stores

 

Whether as one of many shoppers, or going with a friend – for the record, pun intended, I prefer the latter – going to record stores, and digging through used CDs, and used vinyl, almost always gets my creative juices flowing.

When it comes to being inspired by great finds, sometimes it’s an album that I’d been looking for forever, sometimes it’s something totally random that I didn’t even know existed, sometimes it’s an album that’s been autographed, and has some really interesting inscriptions on it (I’m looking at you Shananagans!).

Nearly as often, it’s the conversations with friends while going through all those records that sparks an idea, or two. A record store is a place where we can completely nerd out as music fans, and those are great conversations to get the creative part of the brain going.

When the stars align, there can be a perfect combination of influences. For example, a few months ago I found a long forgotten album from an artist who is now very well known. A buddy and I started talking about it, and I wound up buying the LP. As I listened to it I remembered a random bit of trivia about the artist from a book I had read. All of that will come together when I eventually write about the long forgotten album. In fact, it’s all on one of the whiteboards in my office right now!

Final Thought 

After writing this article I realized there’s one thing all of these forms of inspiration have in common – they all involve being away from screens.

So even while I am writing this for my website, after I post it I’m going to close my laptop, and put away my phone, as it seems pretty clear that logging off the internet is the first step to logging back into our own fertile minds, which are just waiting to be given the right conditions to bloom.