How to Recession-Proof Your Creative Practice - Heather Dyer

This is an older post from The Creative Independent blog, and I hope they don't mind me posting an excerpt here. It seems relevant for those who might be using this time to think up new income streams – or rethink your entire creative practice.

From the longer article, ‘How to Recession-Proof Your Creative Practice’  is the following section on ‘serious play’. Creativity is about combining previously unconnected elements. If we combine our own previously unconnected interests/activities/habits, maybe we can come up with some new avenues for our creative practice?

Serious Play

"Recessions begin with widespread pessimism and survival, and end with optimism and opportunity. As the recession ends, those who survive make plans to grow again. Apple is famous for developing new products during a recession and launching them just as it ends. The first iPod was launched in October 2001, just as an eight-month recession was coming to an end. To get to your own iPod idea, try this creative practice—Serious Play.

Learning by playing has its roots in the kindergarten, Montessori, and Waldorf children’s school movements of 19th-century Europe. But it was “Homo Ludens,” “Humans the Players,” by Johan Huizinga in 1938 that showed how important play is to generating culture. In play, you can change the rules of the game or even create a whole new game. Plus, you can change the playground, the space where you play.

Play is actually one of the most productive things you can do in a recession. My favorite game is called “match up.” Much, maybe most, innovation involves just two steps: Take an old product or business, and match it to a new technology. Amazon began when Bezos took book selling in stores and stuck it on the internet. Zuckerberg took physical photo sharing and poured it through the internet. Listening to music? Hook it up to the net. Transportation? Zip Car, Uber. Renting? Airbnb.

Of course, you don’t need technology to play. Eddie Huang took the traditional Taiwanese meat-filled gua boa, started filling it with Niman Ranch pork belly and Cherry Coca Cola, and named his restaurant Baohaus. I just had my first iced cardamom coffee float at Hampton Chutney in Amagansett. How did these ideas come about? Play.

Serious play is a method of designing the future. And that is how you should spend your time in recession: designing your future."

Try writing 20 different habits/interests/practices dotted across a large piece of paper. For example: Blogs, writing, children, teaching, libraries, families, storytelling, reading, NHS ... etc. Then randomly connect these words in pairs, and try freewriting for five minutes on the relationship between them. Perhaps it will trigger a new approach, like 'reading stories online' or 'blogs for children' or 'writing about the NHS'.

Heather Dyer teaches Writing for Children for the Open College of the Arts, and provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

For further information, see Heather's blog at Writing for Children: Creative Inspiration for Children's Authors.