Can creativity be practiced?
You want to write something, but every idea seems too ordinary to begin. You wait for one that feels worth the effort. By the time you close the notebook, you have rejected several possibilities without finding out what any of them could become.
You can practise creativity before that feeling of inspiration arrives. Looking closely, making a connection and trying a rough version are all things you can do with an ordinary beginning. They give you something to discover and respond to, even when you cannot yet see a finished piece.
In “State of mind”, Innocent describes creativity as a way of seeing that needs to be maintained. It allows a person to find layers of meaning and connections they would otherwise miss. This makes room for practice: there is something to return to besides waiting to feel talented.
A Spark from The Vision
Creative genius is not a place you reach, but a state of mind you maintain.
Give an ordinary thing more attention
Suppose you are describing an empty bench at a station. Your first sentence is, “The station was lonely.” It says what you want the reader to feel, but gives them little to see.
Look again. One end of the bench has worn smooth; the other is still rough. It stands beneath a shelter that does not quite cover it. When it rains, only two people can sit without getting wet.
Those details suggest possibilities the word lonely did not. Someone might leave a dry place for another person. Two people who would normally sit apart might have to move closer. You have begun to connect the physical setting with what could happen there.
The details give you a starting point, not the whole story. A worn seat shows that it has been used. You still have to imagine who sits there, why they are waiting and what they might say.
Let an attempt show you what comes next
Now write a short exchange between the two people sharing the dry seats. Perhaps one offers to move, and the other says they are leaving soon. Try letting the reply be friendly. Then try it as a way of ending the conversation.
The words may stay almost the same while the scene changes. In one version, the people are making room for each other. In the other, one wants to be left alone. Writing both lets you notice which situation interests you and what a reader would need to understand it.
This is creative practice even if neither version becomes a story. You have paid attention, found a possible connection and made something that helps you judge the idea. A weak passage can be examined: perhaps the setting feels real but the reply sounds forced. That is a more useful discovery than deciding, from an empty page, that you have nothing to say.
Maintaining that way of seeing involves returning to it, even after you have made something you like. The next piece will ask for fresh attention. It may begin with a sound, a detail in a room or a question you keep thinking about. You do not need to know what it will become before you give it a little time.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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