Due to work deadlines, I don’t have a post for you today. So I want to introduce you to a fantastic short film instead.
If you can’t see the video, click here to watch it on YouTube.
I love this film because it illustrates a basic creative truth. Great ideas only come after someone has put all the other bricks into the lightbulb. You have to work hard (and fail!) first, then the ‘ah ha’ moment comes.
I’ve recently read the first chapter of Scott Berkun’s book The Myths of Innovation in which he likens the eureka moments to putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The last piece yields the exhilaration of finally solving the problem, but it’s due to the time you spent putting together all the other pieces. The only thing which made that piece special was that it happened to be the last one to fall into place. If you did the puzzle all over again, then it could be a different piece which was the last to slot into place. Therefore the last ‘click’, while thrilling and life changing, can only happen when you’ve put all the effort in beforehand.
So the question is, how far along is your lightbulb/jigsaw puzzle? If you’re not at ‘ah ha’ point yet, keep adding pieces. Sooner or later you’ll get there.
Do you have any comments about this short film? I’d love to hear them. 🙂
Creativity's Workshop 
August 26, 2010 at 7:34 pm
A good film. Probably not high budget, just a lot of imagination. It is so difficult for me, when I’m writing, to find that fresh take on the world. It’s like talking to someone and you want to be witty. You can’t TRY to be witty. It just has to come. In writing–maybe more so in genre writing–it is so easy to be cliche. In a mystery, you choose a victim and he was killed for whatever reason: he was having an affair; he had gambling debts to the mob; he knew someone’s secret. Even if there are no new plots, a writer can put her/his own twist on these things. We should force ourselves to start with a blank page and rush to put something there that has been done a thousand. I don’t have a burning message to communicate to the world; I just have this urge to write. This film is a good reminder that even without some never-before-told truth, I need to make the spin fresh.
August 27, 2010 at 8:39 am
Very true. Finding ways to twist plots is always difficult. (If it were easy wouldn’t everyone be doing it?) I like you’re example about being witty. When someone is trying to be witty, it just becomes painful. When they manage it with (seemlingly) no effort, then you become a captivated audience – even if they’re telling jokes you’ve heard before.
If only we could bottle anti-cliche and rub it on every morning.
August 28, 2010 at 6:40 am
I loved this film Jessica, thanks for sharing.
August 28, 2010 at 9:20 am
You’re very welcome. I grin every time I watch it, so I knew I just had to share.