1. Provocative Operation, coined by Edward de Bono - This involves disrupting your thought patterns. It works with premise that more you are used to something, less stimulating it is for your thinking.

Application: Insert "interruptions" into your day. This can be writing in a different room or area, reading magazines you wouldn't normally read, tuning in to a different radio or television station, cooking and eating something different.

2. Forced Analogy - This method forces you to compare a concept, idea or problem with something else that it has little or nothing in common with. The results are new insights.

Application: Compare an emotion (e.g., elation, excitement, anxiety) with a tangible object (e.g., pen, chair, door). How is anxiety like a door?

When you need to tap creative inside you, use these 2 techniques. Tap into your imagination and you enable yourself to create new things, come up with ideas you have never thought of before. Tap into your imagination and you awaken your creativity.

Copyright (c) 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Ordinary People with their One-Liners. Overheard lines in a conversation can sometimes spark your creative mind. Write down these one-liners in your notebook. They can be great story starters.

Something You Read. Read good books. Keep a file of memorable lines or quotes. Write down quirky billboard ads. Scan papers for one-liners. These are good idea stimulators.

Emotions. Describe what you feel at any given moment. If you feel angry right now, write what your anger feels like. Descriibe it. Use vivid words.

Writers are similar to store owners. Store owners stock their supplies in their shelves, while you stock ideas between pages of your little writer's notebook.

You can make your stock endless, bottomless. You can reach down again and again for inspiration without exhausting your notebook of reserve.

So start stocking your writer's notebook today. A week from now, take a peek in it and you just might find something there that could connect your pen to paper.

Copyright (c) 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ