Exercising Your Creativity

by Alain Briot
1 – Introduction
Creativity grows out of two things: curiosity & imagination.
Benny Goodman
You may wonder why an essay on creativity follows an essay on inspiration.  After all, is there really a difference between the two?  If you ask yourself this question you are not alone because I wondered about this as well while I was working on this series of essays.
In fact I originally titled the essay on Inspiration “Creativity and Inspiration.”  However, while I wrote this essay I found it increasingly difficult to write about both inspiration and creativity at the same time.  I found that although these two subjects are usually presented together, there are many things that separate them.
First, being creative is not the same as being inspired.  On the one hand, one can be inspired and not exercise his or her creativity.  On the other hand, one can be creative without being able to find inspiration. The first situation is comparable to staring at a blank canvas. The d...