I’ll be honest; I’m writing this article because I ran out of ideas. I’ve been writing for Odyssey for about a month and a half, and so far, it has been good for me for multiple reasons. It’s provided me with a great creative outlet, it’s improved my writing skills, and it’s challenged me to get better at meeting deadlines.

However, writing articles once a week often means that I am pressed for time and/or ideas. For me, the creative freedom as an Odyssey author often makes thinking of an article idea the hardest part of the entire process.

Dealing with the dreaded problem of writer’s block got me thinking about the creative process in more general terms. It took me a little while, but I finally figured out that instead of letting it hobble me, I should turn it on its head and fashion it into an article idea instead.

I realized that the creative process itself is often more an unconscious process than a conscious one.

Often, several of my ideas have occurred to me while I am doing something else, like reading, eating, studying, or otherwise just going about my day. Rather than sit down and find an idea, I have to let the idea come to me.

Considering writing from an unconscious perspective changed the way that I see creativity as a whole. Friends of mine who dance, draw, or undertake other creative pursuits have also told me that they too come up with some of their best ideas when they aren’t actively thinking about their project.

When I take this into account, it seems to me that the unconscious mind is a much different animal from the conscious one. When inspiration does strike me, it seems like I am more the conduit for an idea that came from somewhere else, rather than the direct source.

On a related note, seeing creativity as coming from “another person” inside my head strikes me as having certain connotations of schizophrenia or other mental illness. Perhaps this is one reason why so many great artists, musicians, etc. struggled with conditions of mental illness; their creative impulses ran amok in their minds. I’m not so arrogant as to put myself on the level of the “tortured artist” stereotype (I’m certainly not THAT good).

However, I do think that there is something to be said for creativity as a personification of the right-brain that must be harnessed in a healthy manner.