In a previous post, I wrote about the Rock Tumbler metaphor that I use as a heuristic for understanding the different stages—or aspects, phases, components, whatever—of the creative process. Breaking these stages down into concrete activities may be a more useful exercise.
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As I wrote last week, James Webb Young once described the creative process as using the “production line of the mind” to generate ideas. This metaphor for the creative process is useful because it specifies a mental technique that can be learned. The technique is not esoteric, mysterious, or romantic, but rather consists of a few simple principles and methods that you can train yourself to use in your daily life. Young’s enduring insight is that the “production line of the mind” is the source of all ideas.
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