Top 10 Best Websites for True Creativity
I typed "what is creativity?" into the Google, and this is what it said:
The use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work.
To some extent, we each have our own definitions of creativity. Those of us in creative professions may have our own unique set of rules, superstitions, ceremonies, and special pants to protect and nourish our creativity.
Getting it Out There
So what do I mean by "true creativity?" Well, I mean what I think is important to be truly creative. For me, true creativity emphasizes the production part of the definition. And I would go even further to say not just the production part, but the getting-it-out-there part. Because if you are all alone in your house being creative without sharing it, you are the only one who is going to benefit. And you are WAY too big-hearted, brave, and selfless to let that happen.
Criteria
The criteria, therefore, to make my list of top 10 websites for TRUE creativity included not just inspiration (although a couple are pure inspiration) but also encouragement, education, and channels for distributing the things you create. Because, again, creation without an audience -- creation without benefitting others -- is like having a child and then never letting it grow up and experience the world.
Some websites masquerade as pro-creativity sites when really, they are just pro-crastinativity sites. (And yes, I made that word up for phrasal symmetry.) Intentions might be pure, but these sites waste your time, make you feel bad about your own creative production, and then, in the worst cases, use your weakened emotional state to sell you things you don't need. Yuck. I've filtered all those out for you. You’re welcome.
The Top Ten
Here are the topic 10 best websites for true creativity (other than this one, of course) along with their highlights and an idea-suggestion for how to use each to get you going on your creative way.
Highlight: This online magazine covers what's new and modern all over the design world: art, architecture, fashion, interior design, and technology.
Idea: The best sources of ideas are almost never in your field (you risk copying someone else there). So if you're a fashion designer, try looking at their architecture section. You might just find yourself inspired by the lines and colors you see there.
2. COLOURLovers
Highlight: This community of color fans shares palettes and patterns inspired by a wide variety of sources, including magazines, weddings, and Japanese art. Since I'm obsessed with color myself, I can't help but sneak in a link to this amazing article on Creative Bloq that shares 27 other online color tools. I could spend all day just looking at colors and palettes.
Idea: The colors and palettes are each given creative names by community members. Maybe you're writing song lyrics and you need some inspiration for how you're going to sing about the color of your lover's eyes or the sky. How about "lime fusion," or "moonage daydream"?
Highlight: There are a lot of websites out there aimed at helping self-publishing writers promote and sell their work. But Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is the only program I've experienced significant results from. The program is free, easy to use, and in most cases, authors can earn 70% royalties while tapping into the marketing powerhouse that is the Amazon website. Through their KDP select program, I've been able to reach over ten times the amount of people I would normally be able to promote to. That means my book is actually out there in the world, even though I haven't spent a lot of time touring or promoting through blogs.
Idea: See just how easy it is to use by publishing one chapter of your book via KDP. Once you convince yourself just how easy it is to reach an audience, you'll be more motivated to finish your novel and start selling it.
4. Pinterest
Highlight: Pinterest may be the world's best collection of visually-presented ideas. If you are a visual or curatorial person, odds are you are already on Pinterest. If you're not, get ready to sacrifice at least the next three days and nights to this addiction.
Idea: Maybe you're a film set designer. You could click on the "home decor" tab to instantly see incredible designs and atmosphere. And any other idea you could dream of.
5. ARTtwo50
Highlight: This brand new app allows people to virtually hang your visual art on the walls before buying it. And it markets and promotes the work of artists who sign up. I know so many artists would take a bullet before letting the words “business plan” come out of their mouth. Until ARTtwo50, that meant starvation or tending bar.
Idea: Use the app as your imagination puts you in the shoes of the people who buy your art (or who you visualize buying your art). See what they want and what they need. See how it’s going to hang above their couch. Hopefully that inspires you to make something that will make their life better.
6. Times Haiku
Highlight: Jacob Harris at the New York Times created an algorithm that automatically detects haiku which occur within the paper's articles. This Tumblr blog features the human-selected best from those naturally occurring haiku the computer program finds.
Idea: Revisit Times Haiku when you need a writing or creativity prompt. Could this haiku:
inspire a short story, or even a novel? What about a painting?
7. Etsy
Highlight: This online market place is the first spot to check out if you want to buy or sell handmade or vintage items.
Idea: Use the Collections feature to get atmospheric inspiration for anything from a poem to plating your latest culinary creation. Or just use it to get your own creations out there!
8. Highlight: FvF is an online magazine that shows creative people all over the world in their working environments, studios, and homes.
Idea: There's something inspiring about seeing artists in the space where they make things. Next time you feel self-doubt, just take a peek at FvF to be reminded that people all over the world are creating and you can too.
9. TED
Highlight: TED is a nonprofit that started with the goal of spreading ideas in the areas of technology, entertainment and design. Now it's become synonymous with videos of compelling and inspiring talks on just about any idea worth spreading.
Idea: I suggest watching TED talks when you need encouragement, motivation, or inspiration, because they tend to fire you up enough to get you back on track with YOUR projects. It's not an endless rabbit hole, with one video leading to another until you suddenly realize it's 2 AM. I usually can just watch one or two and then am able to apply an idea to my art or life.
Highlight: Writer-Artist Austin Kleon combines writing and visual appeal in his pieces, giving him unique authority to talk and write about the trans-mezcla nature of creativity.
Idea: If you haven't read his book, Steal Like an Artist, you should. In the meantime, check out his blog where he provides pithy and encouraging advice on the creative process.
BONUS!
11. Any Website That Makes You Laugh
Highlight: This website tickles your funny bone; it always seems to have a video or joke that cracks you up every time.
Idea: Visit when you feel creatively stuck. Laughter decreases stress, increases blood flow, increases positive brain chemicals, and can help improve creativity.
Did I miss a website that is in your top ten? Tell me which one and why in the comments.
Image credits:
1. See-ming Lee 李思明 SML via photopin cc (image altered).
2. betta design via photopin cc (image altered).
Welcome Fairy Tale Life Blog Community!
I've got some news.
I'm bringing my creativity coaching and blogging from my website FairyTaleLifeCoaching.com to Packing Lust. I'm combining both blogs so that I can keep all my work here, under one website. That means the Fairy Tale Life community is joining us here at Packing Lust.
Welcome!
To the talented artists and creatives who read the Fairy Tale Life blog, I'm so glad to have you here. I've moved most of the content from Fairy Tale Life over here to Packing Lust. (Click the "creativity" link in the menu above to see those posts.)
Sadly, the one thing I can't move is your wonderful comments. So, I'd like to take this chance to thank each of you by name who took the time to comment on a post at Fairy Tale Life Coaching. I hope you find continued inspiration + magic here at Packing Lust.
Thank you to:
SarahJH, Artist
Ursula, the Crafting Gypsy + Magic Button Maker
Natalie, Writer at All I Am Deciding
Maria, Writer, Queen of the Prairies, + Brainstormer
The Trog, Writer + Spoken Word Performer
Thanks so much.
I'm grateful for your support of Fairy Tale Life Coaching, and thankful for your support of Packing Lust (most of you are here already). To ALL who read Fairy Tale Life, I hope Packing Lust can be a place of fun, inspiration, and magic for you.
Warmly + Sparklingly,
My Birthday Letter
As a birthday present to myself, I thought I’d write an open letter to the girls of the world. This is inspired by a special CNN did called Girl Rising where anyone could submit an open letter to the girls of the world via their website. That project is now closed, but I continue to be inspired reading letters from the likes of Christiane Amanpour, Queen Rania of Jordan, America Ferrera, Gloria Steinem, and other celebrated women.
Posted here exclusively is my letter:
Dear Girls of the World,
Some of you will eschew the word “feminist” because you believe in equality between the genders. “Feminism” sounds, and is sometimes used contextually, as if it condones world domination by women. A better substitute is the word gylany, which means a society based on equality between the genders.
Most of us do not live in a gylanist society, but we are growing that way and there is much you can do to foster it. Here are twelve of my suggestions for doing so.
- Think freely and for yourself; you don’t have to take my suggestions or anyone else’s.
- Learn to love reading; continue to read and learn for your whole life.
- If you rail against emulating your culture’s female role models or icons, find a new role model or create your own in the powerful realm of your imagination.
- Travel. The world is, in general, a less scary place than you may have been raised to believe.
- You can do it all, but not at the same time. Commit to a goal, and see it through without distraction. Commitment dispels the confusion you might feel about what you are supposed to do in the world. You cannot make a wrong choice about this.
- Seek a variety of friends from backgrounds that are different than yours; talk with friends more often about ideas rather than about other people.
- You can live your life the way you so desire it. Don’t let anyone take away the pen that writes your own life story; it is yours alone.
- Beware of gurus who tell you the world is black and white, with clear cut rules for right and wrong; especially beware of anyone touting rules about your sexuality or body.
- Exercise; dance; be athletic; learn martial arts or self defense.
- Remember that everyone is doing their very best, especially when it doesn't seem like it.
- Seek to grow, connect, and contribute; that’s what we are here on this planet to do.
- Love without fear, and never be ashamed of who and what you love.
My Writing Rules
I'm deep in the thickets of drafting my first bookMinimalism for Grandparents: Decluttering for Health, Happiness, and Connection During the Golden Years, and some of you may be wondering just how I manage to write with such prolificacy while also traveling the world. At least my writer friend Jared was. So for Jared and anyone else who may be wondering, the answer (besides that I'm lucky enough to be able to design my life this way) is that I'm easily bored and possibly just a touch ADD. Therefore, having multiple projects going at once is a must for me. I don't seem to be capable of working on one project until it's done and then picking up another one. In the same vein, I'm currently reading (hang on, let me count them) seven books. Probably more, but I stopped counting at seven since I thought it was a suitably impressive number. That's useful for me since whatever I'm reading tends to come out in pure form when I converse. If I was just reading one book, it could get tiring to hear about revolutionary Iran in the 80's over and over. With my brain in seven books, however, I can talk about how Nabokov appears to have been read by students at Tehran university who were not exactly fifty shades of Zionism which came during and after Audrey Hepburn's early film career. I often internally mourn that my brain is fond of boxes. However, I think this reading of unrelated subject matter fights my waffle-headed tendencies and helps me make creative new connections.
Back to my writing, which is as connected to my reading as Levi's are to blue thread. I've learned through the years that I need some sort of schedule for myself. Writing is solitary and there's no boss looking over my shoulder, making sure I've done pages for the day. I've experimented with many different tactics:
- Writing in the morning
- Writing at night
- Writing in the afternoon
- Writing every day
- Wearing a special hat to write
- Writing only when inspired late at night on caffeine
- Writing for eight hours a day on weekdays
- Writing on my lunch break at an office job
- Asking friends to ask me about my writing regularly
- Promising people completed scripts upon certain deadlines
- Writing carefully
- Writing heedlessly
- Setting yearly writing goals
- Setting monthly writing goals
- Scheduling out each day down to the minute
- Setting a timer and writing until it goes off
Whew. I've learned a few things in general about how to make myself write. For me, the earlier in the day that I write, the more likely I am to a) write that day and b) write more that day. Writing at the beginning of the day seems to set a tone of creative production for the whole day and to keep my muse happy and coming back for more.
The muse shows up unannounced and usually at the most inconvenient times. The best writing comes from the muse: what you can also think of as the holy spirit, or the creative subconscious. The ability to write when the muse shows up takes the same kind of discipline that waking up early - the moment your alarm goes off-- takes. It's hard and I rarely do it. But I'm glad when I do. The best feeling when writing, and when the best writing comes, is when the creative subconscious gets though in kind of a sly way. I'm relaxed, well fed, and not worried about the well-being of any of my loved ones. There's quiet around me - no music or conversation or fear of interruption. I'm not trying too hard; it's flow. Time passes without my awareness of how much has gone by.
However, most times, I'm trying hard. Because in an almost cruel reality, the muse is somehow summoned and nourished by my trying hard -- by thinking a lot about the writing and the topics. I can relate it to something I heard in an interview with actor James Franco. He prepares and prepares very hard, then when the cameras roll, he just relaxes and lets whatever comes out come out.
What has worked for me to get my writing done every day while still leaving time to experience where I am, is daily goals. Also, I have more time to write now than I did in LA. I have fewer friends here to hang out with, and I don't have another job to take any of my creative energy (as much as I liked faerie princess-ing).
After trying to schedule my days, I found out that one of my big values is freedom. I won't stick to a schedule because it can feel like a tyrant boss.
So I have simple two rules for myself:
- Write every day.
- Write for at least an hour, five days a week. Usually I end up writing for more than one hour, but it's kind of like telling yourself before a morning jog that you are just going to run for five minutes. Once you get out there, feel the wind in your nose and see the birds fluttering by, you'll be enjoying it and you'll probably run for the whole thirty minutes.
On top of my writing rules, at the beginning of the year I had a couple of big writing goals. One was to write six first drafts (feature-length scripts) this year. Another was to write and publish my first book. I have other smaller projects too, but those are in addition to my major goals.
So that I keep my projects straight and work on each project enough to complete my goals on time, I created one goal for each remaining work day of 2012. I did this a couple months ago, and this system is working for me so far. It allows me to focus on one project a day, to trust that they will all get done because I can see it on the schedule, and to not get bored because I can see ahead that I will get to work on a different project soon.
For example, here is what my first ten days looked like:
Day 1 Blogsville -- book project ask for help and weekend trip
Day 2 Character work on script #3.
Day 3 Plot work on script #3.
Day 4 Character work on script #3
Day 5 Research details for the script.
Day 6 Blogsville
Day 7 Outline #3 in Final Draft
Day 8 New script idea generating
Day 9 Outline #3 in Final Draft
Day 10 Go to script: Write 10 pages today on script #3.
It goes on until the end of the year...
I don't add a date to when I should be doing each goal because sometimes I move them around or work on a weekend or maybe I took a mental health day or a sick day. (I have a great boss who lets me take off whenever I want.) Life is bigger than writing. And that's the way I like it.
If you are trying to write (or paint, or whatever) and you are also working a full-time job or have some other major drain on your time, my only advice is to write first thing in the morning. I didn't have the willpower to do it regularly when I had a full-time job, but if I had one now, I'd find a way to make it work. I'd reward myself with ice cream of something, anything, but I would make it work.
If you are trying to write while traveling, the advice is the same. Bring a small laptop computer or a notebook, and do it early. You never know what the day will bring, and you have most control over you time and willpower in the morning.
I think each writer (or any person who wants to create something without an office and a boss) must experiment and figure out what works for him or her. Let me know if this helped you.
If you have felt for a long time that you want to write, that you have something to say, you are weakening the tender fabric of your soul with each day that you do not write.
Please leave any helpful tips that have worked for you in the area of self-motivated creative work in the comments below. I trust you guys to give me some good tips that will help me write more and better, and that will help anyone who reads this post.