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As poet and novelist Sylvia Plath said, 麻豆精品 S淭he worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. 麻豆精品 S� And a lot of that doubt stems from misconceptions that we, as a society, have about creativity.
Misconception No. 1: Creativity = uniquely original ideas
I get it. You want to write something that no one else has ever written before. And you will. Not because you 麻豆精品 S檝e come up with an idea that has never been done before, but because no one else is going to combine story elements together in the way you will and because no one else is coming to the story with the exact same background, tastes and experiences as you.
Humans have been telling stories as long as we 麻豆精品 S檝e existed, so the chances that someone else has written a book about a ghost haunting a boarding school are good. That 麻豆精品 S檚 OK. Suzanne Collins wasn 麻豆精品 S檛 the first to write about teens fighting to the death. Bram Stoker probably wasn 麻豆精品 S檛 the first to set a terrifying tale in a gothic castle. Their stories are still full of creativity because of the way they chose to tell them.
So don 麻豆精品 S檛 stress if your idea bears a passing resemblance to some other book. As you write it, it will become uniquely yours.
Misconception No. 2: Creativity requires an innate talent
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Anyone can learn coding or phlebotomy with enough practice, we believe, but if you aren 麻豆精品 S檛 an immediate violin virtuoso, there 麻豆精品 S檚 no point in trying.
Ask any artist about the years they spent honing their craft and you 麻豆精品 S檒l learn about the hours of practicing that complicated piece of music, the 50 failed sculptures before the masterpiece, the terrible first draft that had to be rewritten and revised a dozen times before it became a best seller. We see artists as innately talented, as overnight successes, because we don 麻豆精品 S檛 usually get to peek behind the curtain at the failures and the persistence that led to their triumph.
So when you write that first chapter but then decide it 麻豆精品 S檚 complete and utter garbage, don 麻豆精品 S檛 give up. Keep writing and by the time you get to 麻豆精品 S渢he end, 麻豆精品 S� you 麻豆精品 S檒l already be a better writer than you were before. Read a book or find a blog about how to craft a compelling story. Study your favorite novels to figure out how they pulled off that twist, what made you sympathize with the main character, why you just couldn 麻豆精品 S檛 put it down.
Write another book and another. Make friends with fellow writers who can help you find the flaws in your work (because bonus misconception: Writing doesn 麻豆精品 S檛 have to be a solitary act). Use their feedback to improve your book. Write another book, revise it and revise it again.
Is it hard? Yes. There will be days where you cry over your keyboard and wonder if you should quit. Nights where the words just won 麻豆精品 S檛 come. Keep practicing; don 麻豆精品 S檛 give in to self-doubt. Because in the end, the joy of creating 麻豆精品 S攐f knowing you took a kernel of an idea from your head and turned it into something 麻豆精品 S攊s incomparable.
Emma Gisclair is a library technical assistant at the UCF Library 麻豆精品 S檚 Curriculum Materials Center. She can be reached at Emma.Gisclair@ucf.edu.
The聽UCF Forum聽is a weekly series of opinion columns from faculty, staff and students who serve on a panel for a year. A new column is posted each Wednesday on UCF Today and then broadcast on WUCF-FM (89.9) between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday. () Opinions expressed are those of the columnists, and are not necessarily shared by the University of Central Florida.
