One of my favorite ways to kick-start my creative juices is to make or create something totally different than anything I would normally create. Here's an exercise I learned at a writers' conference a few years ago that's just plain fun.
Create Found Poetry
Found poetry is made up using words and phrases you find. On the surface that sounds sort of lame, because unless you're going to make up your own language, you "find" all the words you use.
Grab a book, newspaper, magazine--anything with printed words. The dictionary or a thesaurus will work, but it may be a bigger challenge than you'd like. Open your printed word medium of choice to any page, close your eyes, and place your finger on the page. Open your eyes and copy down the phrase you were pointing to. Include any punctuation that appears with the words.
Flip through the pages, or look at different areas of the page you started with, and hunt for words or phrases that might work well with your first phrase. Copy them down, and when you've "found" enough phrases to suit yourself, arrange them in the form of a poem. If you use more than one phrase per line, leave a good-sized space between the phrases.
Very old books and the classified section of newspapers are my favorite places to "find" poetry. Here's a poem I created from classified ads:
The Creator has A Name.
Are
You The Father?
Find the solution!
We deliver!
Beautiful baby
Help us find her.
Will keep clean
For life.
Cash buyer.
Will pick up.
As you can see, I am not a poet, am basically rhythm-impaired, and will never make a cent with my poetry. That's okay, that's not why I compose poetry, and this is one of the extremely rare times I'm brave enough to share what I've composed. After channeling my creativity into an unusual outlet like this, I feel recharged and better able to create something I do want to share.
Write a poem. Share it or don't. But please let me know if you enjoyed this exercise, and how effective it was at boosting your creativity.
