Update: The Power Of Creative Paths

So I’ve not talked about this much here, but now it deserves it’s own post – because my first Seventh Sanctum inspired book is coming up – and it’s not Way With Worlds (which is going to editor in a bit, more later).

It’s called “The Power Of Creative Paths,” and it’s a book on how people come up with Big Ideas – specifically, the five different ways that they do it.  This is the one I’ve called “The Creativity Book” because . . . OK to be fair I didn’t have a good name yet.

Working on Generators, talking to people, I tried to formulate a way to understand how people created – and came up with a theory that there’s five basic creative types – Creative Paths as I call them.  Like any path, people “travel” it to get somewhere and find something – a Big Idea.  The thing is we’re often on different paths than others and don’t know it – or don’t realize they’re stuck on one path and would do well to try others or they aren’t working well with others.  Sometimes both.

So the book focuses on knowing which Path you’re usually on, practicing getting onto others, and figuring out how to work best with people based on your current or preferred path.  Of course it contains plenty of exercises and hands-on stuff to do, so you can really get to trying out the different Paths!

Right now it’s off at the editors, so stay tuned!

  • Steve

Update – Latest Generator!

Yes, if you’re over at Seventh Sanctum you know I’m working on a Reality Show Generator.  Here’s the latest update.

This one involved me doing more in-depth data analysis before building it.  In many cases (not all) I sort of dive into the generator and build as I analyze.  In this case I stepped back and broke the data down – something I usually only do for generators with more obvious patterns like the Magical Power Generator.

The results were:

  1. The breakdown was revealing.
  2. The breakdown was really boring to do after awhile.
  3. The breakdown worked and let me build the generator very fast.
  4. Once I started building the generator, I could make it “richer” in data, patterns, etc. very quickly.

Short form – doing an early, organized analysis of data for a generator pays off, but it’s not as exciting as doing it by the seat of my pants.  On the other hand, this was less frustrating than the Plot Twist Generator.

So, anyway, if you want a preview of what this generator will do, here’s some results:

  • Best Women Of Vancouver
  • Bizarre Stories of the South American Navy
  • Brazilian Cop
  • Brazilian Teacher
  • British Film
  • Confirmed Records of London
  • Confirmed Women Of New York
  • Fish Killer
  • France’s Next Top Boy
  • Husband Grandparents of France
  • I married a Millionaire: Britain
  • I married a Star
  • Japanese Computer Man
  • Miami Scalpers
  • North American Sister Change
  • Rescue Person
  • Sibling Academy
  • The Next Best Grandfather
  • The Queen of Lawyers
  • True Hunters Of France

– Steve