Sunday, February 03, 2008

How does one get ideas?

Several days ago, I borrowed a book from the library. It was a relatively easy to read book, and within one single sitting at the library's cafe, I have managed to read the entire book consisting 47 pages.

Title: A Technique for Producing Ideas
Author: James Webb Young
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0-07-141094-5

The author lends insights to the workings of the creative process. The author proposed that ideas are actually new combinations of old elements. In order to come up with such combinations, he outlined five steps:

1) Gather raw materials
2) Work over the raw materials in the mind
3) Incubation stage
4) Production of the idea
5) Shape and develop the idea

I suppose one of the ways to gather the "raw materials" is to read extensively. Visiting museums is another way.

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