Nurturing Your Creativity - Podcast

The process of creativity is mysterious, wonderful, and magical. Ideas come at the strangest times and in the most incomplete pieces. Pen Densham, the screenwriter for "Robinhood: Prince of Thieves," discusses tapping into and following your creative instincts in writing. When it comes to creativity, Densham suggests that you follow whatever you’re passionate about, because then you won’t quit. Once you've written a first draft—one that you’ve written without putting a lot of pressure on yourself to make it perfect—then share it with kind people. Don’t share it with arrogant people or jealous bullies. Share it with people who are kind enough to want to help you go through the pain of birthing your book. Once they’ve read it, ask them what parts they understood, what parts they didn’t, and what parts they'd like to see more of. Of course, you’re the one who has to decide whether or not to take their advice. And once you get through the process of sharing the material with kind, decent, supportive people who understand the process of writing, then you can expose it to the wider community. Through this process, you can nurture and follow your creative instincts to write the book you envision.