Whenever I have a looming creative deadline (and by creative deadline, I mean one of those “have a brilliant idea by 2:34pm on Wednesday” kind of deadlines), I’ve discovered a certain pattern I fall into. First I’ll think about it casually, read through my existing lists of project ideas to see if anything fits, then maybe make a new list of related concepts, which might get turned into a mind map or some kind of diagram. When that fails to produce The Idea, as it invariably will, my next impulse is to go Hermione on the idea, rushing straight to my bookshelf or, to the detriment of my bank account, Amazon, and compiling a giant stack of related theory (purchased for just such an intellectual emergency) and relevant fiction (purchased to escape having to brainstorm in the first place). Here’s the sticking point, and, not coincidentally, where I find myself right now in trying to get specific about what The Idea is for my ITP thesis: I grab the theory books first.

I’m slowly realizing that, while reading theory is very useful in expanding my thoughts after finding The Idea, it’s almost counter productive when searching for it in the first place. Interest in a wide range of topics is not my weak point, believe me, and I’ve already got a handle on the basics, so reading theory actually compounds the problem of trying to narrow down all the many directions I could go right now. I wind up with more crisscrossing strands of thinking in my head, not less.

I think the secret may be to read the theory when there isn’t a looming deadline or project, to load all that info into my brain, and then again after finding The Idea, to help expand it in interesting ways. But while actually searching for inspiration, thoughtful fiction (especially science fiction, which is mostly what I read at this point) might be a better influence. Reading theory is holding The Idea so close that you can’t focus on it, just the world around it, but reading fiction puts it off to one side, so the next time you glance over it’s plainly obvious, situated right in the midst of all that theory.

This, of course, seems totally counterintuitive, so I’m not saying I’m going to heed my own advice. But I really had to do something besides read Callois right now.