austinkleon:

Damn, this is good:

The point is, we don’t know—this is terribly important—we don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops. We get our ideas from our unconcious, the part of our mind that goes on working when we’re asleep. So what I’m saying is that if you get into the right mood, then your mode of thinking will become much more creative. But if you’re racing around all day, ticking things off on lists, looking at your watch, making phone calls, and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas.

The way to do this, Cleese says, is to create boundaries of space and boundaries of time. You need a place to work that’s away from the garbage of your life, and a start time and a stop time to play. It’s that simple.

Lynda Barry says almost the exact same thing in What It Is.