creativity

One of the benefits of working at a library is that I bring a lot of books home. Sometimes the books are for me, sometimes they are (also) for my two children. You might think that someone who goes to the library five days a week (sometimes six!) would never have overdue books . . . but you would be wrong.

There are just so many I want to read!

Bored and Brilliant is one of the new books at the library that caught my eye. In the first twenty pages, I have already marked seven places.

It’s a library book, so by marked, I mean marked with my new book darts – archivally correct, and a safe alternative to paperclips.

The premise of the book is that boredom is necessary for creativity – “to think original thoughts, we must put a stop to constant stimulation.”

We must embrace the “tedium of creativity.”

This doesn’t mean that creativity is joyless, far from it, but often the joy comes after wrestling with some aspect of the creative endeavor. Most writers would be quick to admit that there are parts of the writing process they do not particularly enjoy. For some writers it is the first draft, for some writers the revisions . . . you get the idea.

If you want to be more creative, go ahead, be bored.