Wandering and Direction in Creative Production

The broad field of creative production offers many anecdotal books devoted to various methods for generating ideas. Most of these pay scant attention to such difficulties as figuring out an initial direction; sorting out which ideas are worth pursuing, and preventing a critical frame of mind nurtured by years of schooling from stymying the flow of ideas. With the literature missing much of what would be useful in everyday practice, and lacking the research that would answer basic questions, some productive professionals have developed unusual habits through years of trial and error. Many of these seem to involve shifting back and forth between a focus on wandering or going somewhere new, and a focus on direction or arriving at a specific place.