I’m a huge advocate for actively creating, instead of passively waiting for creativity to happen. I think it’s a waste of time to “wait” for inspiration to strike when you could just start throwing something together until it becomes the basic framework for something better.

The one exception I tend to hold onto is idea generation. The hardest part about my job as a journalist (not quite my job, but the easiest way to describe it) is always having to come up with new ideas on the spot. There are many times ideas just don’t come to you when you need them to.

Sometimes, you have to let them come to you first.

This is a much better strategy for creative and personal writing, of course. There tend to be fewer deadlines, and they’re much more spread out. But it can work for journalists and bloggers and other kinds of…