Cleese talks creativity

.. .. When someone with as much talent as John Cleese writes a little book about being creative, it pays to listen.

This is a slim, 103-page essay about how to encourage the skill of creativity no matter what you think you can’t do. He describes it as “a short and cheerful guide”, and so it is.

He also says everyone is creative and draws on his long experience as a writer and comedian to explain what creativity is — new ways of thinking about things — and how to get the juices flowing. He didn’t start life as a creative person: His skill was in science, physics, chemistry and maths. Then he went to Cambridge and studied law, but also joined the Footlights, a university .. performance crew, because he liked the people. He’s become one of the best-known English comics and writers.

There’s some good advice about sleeping on a problem, and finding the answer in the morning, or using the “tortoise mind” which meanders around a subject and ruminates.

He also advises to “kill your darlings”, not hanging on to something just because you liked it first.

This is a quick read which will give you some great ideas about how to be more creative, how to refine a good idea and what to do when you hit a brick wall. Anyone can do it.

— Linda Thompson