Kansas Writers Association and Creativity

I attended the monthly meeting of the Kansas Writers Association earlier today and enjoyed it. It was good to meet a few other people who were writing, I learned about a writer's group that meets in Pratt and the chance to go to informal meetings in Wichita, at which time people will critique each other's writing. Definitely made the right decision to go and hopefully I'll get some more insight regarding writing and how to get published.

The topic at the meeting was about creativity and imagination. One of the points discussed was that the usage of "creativity" with regards to the thought process, didn't become common until 1926. Among the topics discussed was how creativity seemed to be linked to mood disorders, which I can relate to a bit (I have an overactive imagination and a short temper) and that creative people tend to be persistent (evidence: when a writer sits down to write a short story or novel, the writer really wants to get it finished).

We also discussed how children these days get a lot of time to imagine and pretend, and how it wasn't always that way. It used to be the children would go and do the same work their parents were doing. Nowadays they are allowed to be kids and have some fun.

And that brings me to another topic discussed: How creativity is enhanced in part by work, by play and by rest -- and the three should be evenly divided. In other words, too much work leads to too much stress and stifles creativity.

It makes sense when you think about the 24-hour day, to have an eight-hour day for work, get eight hours of sleep and leave the rest of the day to yourself. It's definitely something our workaholic society who survives on not enough sleep should think carefully about. How many creative works are likely getting lost because we spend too much time working and not enough time sleeping and enjoying ourselves.

I look forward to more meetings with Kansas Writers Association members. It was a pleasure to get to know some people there and hopefully this helps me along the new path I'm following.