Are you waiting for a Big Idea?

Yesterday, a friend said a strange thing to me. He said that he had read many of my blog posts, and some of my short stories,  but – before I could thank him – he added that he felt most of them were quite simple, as they were based on events and incidents that happened in my daily life.

My first reaction, naturally, was one of indignation. I felt that my friend was accusing me of lacking imagination and creativity. But, at the time, I decided to mull over the whole thing before reacting to what he said.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that he was right. My ideas did originate in the events that were happening all around me. All I did was take these little, ordinary, incidents and weave a web of words around them.

But, isn’t that exactly what writing and creativity is all about?

 Creativity doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor does a writer live in isolation. Creativity is definitely about creating new ideas, but the genesis of all new ideas lie in the old, existing ideas. To be different from the herd, you first need to recognise the herd and its ways.

Coming back to what my friend said, I realised that there was no need for me to feel bad about what he said. In fact, I realised, that in his naivety, he might have actually complimented me. After all, I had been able to derive inspiration from mundane, daily, events, and turn them into interesting stories, or blog posts.

I think this is exactly what all of us, as writers and creative people, should be aspiring for.

Totally new and inspiring ideas, when they come, are welcome. Such ideas, however, occur to a person only a few times in one lifetime. If we keep waiting for such ideas we may spend our entire life looking for them, and there is a good chance that when we eventually find one, we may not be prepared to deal with it.

It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to find your inspiration in your daily life, at least till such time your big idea comes to you. Don’t you think?

(Image courtesy: porah from sxc.hu)