How One Idea Sparks Creativity: Writing, Teaching & Innovation

Creativity starts with a single spark. From writing a novella to leading group sketching exercises, explore how small ideas grow into something bigger.

A mixed media collage I made with analog assets and digital assets.

Hello Friends! I’ve got an announcement for you in the first section, so let’s get into it.

One Scene

The meme in the post below, featuring a segment of an expertly drawn horse labeled “the one specific scene I came up with,” surrounded by the rest—crudely drawn—labeled “building a whole story around it,” has been floating around the internet for a while, but I only recently came across it when it was shared by

The Freelance Writing Network

on Substack Notes.

I instantly resonated with the depiction, as it largely represents what happened when I imagined a Thanksgiving dinner scene that would underpin a rich family business drama (think Succession but in suburban Milwaukee). Now I’m not much of a fiction writer, but the idea wouldn’t leave me alone, so I punched the keys until I’d scribed an elegant equine of a chapter that I was proud of.

But then I had to write the rest of the horse.

I never imagined that the single scene I thought up back in October would lead me to write an entire novella, but strange things happen when you chase a curiosity. I’d like to think that the next nine I wrote are as well crafted as the first and that my story isn’t a reflection of the meme.

Later this month, I intend to release that story as a serial here on Substack (probably on Tuesdays). For the next nine weeks after that, I will release another chapter in the saga of the Windsor family and the greeting card empire that bears their name.

In case it isn’t clear, I’m announcing the forthcoming publication of the first piece of fiction I’ve written since that short film script I drafted in college.

Takeaway: When a creative instinct grabs a hold of you, let it take you somewhere new.

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Group Sketching

Earlier this month, I led a professional development session at work. You’d think teaching teachers might be easier than teaching students, but you’d be wrong. Very wrong.

Teachers are the worst students—especially at mandatory inservice days. They’d rather be lesson planning or grading, and they typically hold multiple masters degrees and have years of classroom experience, so what could they possibly still have left to learn?

Of course I’m being hyperbolic, but teachers are a tough crowd. Fortunately, my session was well received. My attendees were highly engaged, and appreciative of my efforts.

In the future, I think I’d like to speak publicly in a professional capacity. Volunteering to lead this session was my attempt at testing this hypothesis. I’m pleased to say, I still think this is something I’d like to do. It was rewarding to take my message of creativity and innovation in front of a live audience and share what I’ve been giving an awful lot of mind share to lately.

As the session was a success, and well received by my peers, I’d thought I’d share one of the exercises I led my participants through. It’s called Group Sketching, and here’s how it works:

• Make groups of four

• Give each group a piece of paper and a writing utensil

• Ask the first group member to draw a line, shape, squiggle or symbol on the paper

• Pass the paper to the next person in the group and have them add their own line, shape, squiggle, or symbol

• Group members are not allowed to discuss what they’re drawing. They may only make a contribution and pass the drawing along

• Continue passing the paper around the group until a picture emerges (about three or four times for each person)

A sample group sketch

Each group will end up with something different, but it’ll look something like the image above.

After the drawing is complete, ask each group to come up with a brief explanation or story about the drawing. Collect the images, display them to the whole group, and have a speaker from each small group share their story.

This exercise illustrates that serendipity is an important part of creativity. It also demonstrates the value of imposed constraints. By restricting discussion, and limiting artistic contributions so finitely, members don’t have the luxury of over thinking their work. Excuses are removed, humor is infused, and creative output emerges in delightful ways.

Takeaway: While the specific output of this exercise is rarely directly actionable or even particularly useful, the habits of mind the exercise requires certainty are.

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Connecting Dots

Adam Grant, professor of organizational psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, tweeted the following back in October:

The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It's how well you synthesize.

Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.

It's not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.

In the professional development session I led, I made a similar point referencing a 1999 Wired magazine quote from Steve Jobs in which he likened creativity to dot connecting. The point that I tried to make is that while some classes may be inherently more creative than others, Ceramics vs. Algebra II for example, each academic discipline represents a dot, and connections can be formed between them. As such, all teachers play a role in shaping the creativity of students.

I’ve personally witnessed students in my video game design and development class implement mathematical concepts in their code that were way above my head. I certainly didn’t teach them the math, and their math teachers didn’t teach them the game development, but the students’ creativity connected the dots.

Creativity isn’t so much a thing unto itself as it is the space between other things.

The most creative people I know possess wide interests, learn fast by doing, and have a way of reconstituting their inputs into unique outputs. They see the world differently, and bravely share it with the world.

Takeaway: Memorizing facts isn’t as important as making connections between them. You may now be forgiven for never learning all the state capitals.

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One is Infinitely Better

If I could wave a magic wand, I’d have all the time in the world to sit each day and write, build little apps, work in Photo Shop, and make/play guitars in a secluded cabin/studio/shop in the woods somewhere. Of course no matter how hard I wave it, my wand ain’t magic.

A James Clear Tweet reminded me, however, that while those ideal conditions would be great, the next best thing is whatever you can eke out. He writes:

Two is twice as good as one, but one is infinitely better than zero.

-One minute of making sales calls is infinitely better than zero minutes.

-One minute of meditation is infinitely better than zero minutes.

-One minute of writing is infinitely better than zero minutes.

Sure, it might be ideal to spend an hour doing these things, but one minute gets you in the game. Now you're learning. Now you're improving. Now results are possible. One doesn't seem like much, but it's something real. At zero, you're still dreaming.

It’s easy to defer your dreams until the time is right, but the thing is, that time almost never comes. In the case of creative work, which easily takes the back seat to more pressing matters like work, family, and friends, it’s important not to find time, but to make time—even if for just a minute or two.

I make a list at the beginning of each day of everything I’d like to accomplish. I don’t always cross off every item, but I do my best to make some amount of progress. Yes my divided attention sometimes leaves untold numbers of projects in states of incompletion, but by keeping track of them all, and being intentional about working on them, they eventually get done.

When I look back on the previous month, I almost always have something to show for my efforts that could have easily remained something I’d like to do.

Takeaway: If you’ve been dreaming of a project, what’s an action you could take in the next five minutes to put it in motion? I guarantee there’s at least something. Do it now. Build on it tomorrow, and repeat that process until it’s done.

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“My Bad” is So Good

Legend has it, when Manute Bol played in the NBA, his command of the English language was still developing and instead of saying, “My fault,” when he made a mistake, he said, “My bad.”

While linguists will argue that this phrase was in use in certain communities as early as the 1970s, he is often credited with, if not coining the term, popularizing it.

I’ve used it myself.

Whether this story is true or not is secondary to the point that I think it illustrates: outsiders who lack formal training tend to break rules and redefine what is possible.

Jimi Hendrix, for example, lacked formal instruction in guitar. He played the instrument backwards*. He couldn’t read sheet music, and he intentionally added feedback and distortion to his tone in a way that was deemed “wrong.” But he revolutionized what it means to be a lead guitarist and rock musician.

Takeaway: It sometimes takes an outsider, unfamiliar with the rules, to redefine the game.

*At the time of publishing, I originally wrote, “He played the instrument backwards and upside down,” which was incorrect. While Hendrix did play a right-handed guitar left-handed (effectively upside down), he restrung the strings to match a conventional left-handed layout. So, it’s more accurate to say he played backwards (compared to right-handed players), but not upside down.

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One More Thing

Good things are better when shared. If you liked this, it would mean the world to me if you sent it to someone who might like it too.

I’ll see you in your inbox again next week.

Until then,

-Mike