How to Create Something

A friend was having trouble getting a web site design started. We talked and soon the design was underway. Whether your project is writing, art, or another type of design, the approach that worked for her may get the creativity flowing for you.

• Don't try to make something perfect, or even excellent. It will keep you from starting at all. Understand that it will evolve.
• Put a stake in the ground. Start at one corner and do something - even if it feels mediocre.
• Limit the flexibility. When you have a truly blank slate, the infinite possibilities can be paralyzing, so make up a theme, a concept. It doesn't have to be spot-on, or even relevant. Just something to give a direction. In product design, they sometimes refer to a "design language." Pick something -- colors, feeling, theme song, an imagined environment, a theme, a message.
• Take inspiration from other works but use that only as a seed, to grow your crystal in your own way.
• Just design. Let the content, the design process steer you. Stephen King, in his excellent book On Writing, talks about letting the characters tell the story. Imagine them and their situation and just write, letting them live in your mind. You become a spectator and just tell the story as they work it out. Likewise for a web site, your copy, or anything else. Build the  theme in your mind and let it guide you rather than you trying to guide it.
• Seek feedback from others but not too soon and don't listen too much.