Just read a brilliant article that made me think about how I write and what I write about and how is the best approach to deliver that message.
In the article Why Storytelling is the Utlimate Weapon by Jonathan Gottschall,
he concludes that “A story is a trick for sneaking a message into the fortified citadel of the human mind.”
Everyone loves a good story but it is the story filled with emotion and a premise that sucks people in, this is the story that will stick the best.
This article matches how good storytelling and good marketing go hand in hand. Tell a good story and you can bet that people will buy the product and keep coming back for more if it is a good story they want to be told time and time again.
The article is featured on website called Co. Create. The fundamental reason for this website is simple. According to the Editor of Co. Create, “Our central premise is that creativity is key, at all levels of business. While business in the past was driven by efficiency, it’s creativity and innovation that will advance companies, and society in general, now.”
Absolutely brilliant! Finally a website that offers marketing advice with business advice with a creative bent focused at engaging creative minds. I loved it. I spent over an hour surfing this site and reading various articles. I walked away feeling refreshed, and happy, and actually smarter!
But the best part of this exciting adventure was that I found articles that helped me feel good about my creative process and validated me. I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive from reading a webiste. Finally, after reading articles on writing by people with what seems like a second grade education on Yahoo or MSN, I find amazing articles on Co Exist that empowered me and made me feel like I wasn’t crazy or boring. I wanted to sit all day and just absorb the wisdom.
Here is a great snippet from 4 Lessons in Creativity From John Cleese (marvelous comedian and writer) as he recounts the key, practical traits of truly creative people he read about in an article by a professor: “The first thing he discovered is that the creative architects knew how to play. They could get immersed in a problem. It was almost childlike, like when a child gets utterly absorbed in a problem. The second thing was that they deferred making decisions as long as they could. This is surprising.”
“If you have a decision to make, what is the single most important question to ask yourself? I believe it’s ‘when does this decision have to be made’? When most of us have a problem that’s a little bit unresolved, we’re a little bit uncomfortable. We want to resolve it. The creative architects had this tolerance for this discomfort we all feel when we leave things unresolved.”
“Why would those two things be importance? The playfulness is because in that moment of childlike play, you’re much more in touch with your unconscious. The second is that when you defer decisions as long as possible, it’s giving your unconscious the maximum amount of time to come up with something.”
Yes!!!! This feels like truth to me.
I love to play loud music and dance around while I write. I get hyped up. Then I love to talk with my characters before I write anything down on paper. Then I spend an hour or more in a good chat session via instant messenger with Patrizia and we hash stuff out forever, bouncing ideas back and forth. It is like ladies night out with too much wine and cheese. Then before we commit to it and begin to write it down (which can be a month) we finally seal off on a decision and then run with the actual writing of the manuscript.
It allows us time to really understand the inner and outer conflict of our hero and heroine, and makes the story that much stronger.
There are so many articles that I would love to go on and on about, but I doubt I have the room. So I invite everyone to head on over to Co. Create and get a cup of coffee, some donuts or bagels, preference is yours, and just sit back at 6:30 am when the house is quiet and read article after article. They have a new one everyday. The website even offers Master Classes with some very talented authors, writers, artists, etc. All there to give you a boost and fill your head with good wholesome information sure to raise your IQ and creativity level. http://www.fastcocreate.com/
