"If you don't ask 'why this?' often enough, somebody will ask 'why you?'"--Tom Hirshfield

This is one of a series of articles about creativity. They follow the "forces of creativity" as outlined by Don Hahn in his book Dancing Corndogs in the Night: Reawakening Your Creative Spirit, though they are here applied particularly to creativity in writing. These forces are Craft, Light, Chaos, Balance, Curiosity, Composition, Simplicity, Spectacle, Surprise, Memory, Symbol and Truth.

Unlike last month's force of creativity, balance, it is easy to see why curiosity was included in this list. Curiosity is often the beginning of creativity. When you begin asking questions like "What is that?" What does this do?" "How does it work?" and "Why do we...?" you are on the way to a creative answer.

Children know instinctively to ask these questions. Fran Lebowitz expressed it like this: "Children ask better questions than adults. 'May I have a cookie?' 'Why is the sky blue?' and 'What does a cow say?' are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than 'Where's your manuscript?' 'Why haven't you called?' and "Who's your lawyer?" It is by becoming childlike that you can recapture the creativity that isn't afraid of obvious questions.

When I worked in a library, many of the changes in workflow in my area came from student workers asking, "Why do we do this?" Looking at a process as a newcomer and asking basic questions will often lead you to new and creative ways of doing something.

When I was helping automating another library, one of my tasks was to figure out how to translate the reports we had been doing by hand to their computerized equivalents. One particular report stumped me. To get some more information, and possibly figure out how to collect the data another way, I asked, "What do you do with this report? How is the information used?" The reply was, "I give it to the head librarian. I'm not sure what he does with it." So I asked the head librarian, "What do you do with the information from this report?" His answer, "Nothing at all. I just file it away." How long has it been since you looked at your systems at work or at home to weed out those which no longer serve any useful purpose? Getting rid of useless or outdated tasks is not only a part of creativity, but leads to more time for new, useful, and creative things to get done.

Curiosity has led me to do research in eras as diverse as the fourth century AD, Arthurian Britain, and the nineteen fifties, and interests as different as the mediation process, meerkats, traditional women's occupations and how being in them affects salary and prestige, finding out the species of various ducks on a nearby canal, and the Three Mile Island accident. Most of this has been reflected in writing projects, published or unpublished. As a bonus, I now have an eclectic body of knowledge to draw on, and to compare other ideas against.

Curiosity can be nurtured just like any other skill. If you need a prod in that direction, look around you right where you are and begin asking questions about an object you see. Focus on it and try to figure out all about it.

Take for instance, a lava lamp. You might ask, "What is the red stuff?" "What is the fluid it's in?" "Why does heat make the red stuff act like it does?" "Who created the lava lamp?" "What led him/her to do so?" "What made it catch on so well?" "Why do they continue to exist when things like hula hoops and pet rocks disappeared?" "What gave the creator the idea to call it a lava lamp?" "Which came first the name or the lamp?" "Was it just an idea whose time had come, or did creative marketing play a part in its success?" "In what way does the lava lamp define the Boomer generation?"

Do you begin to see article ideas in some of those questions?

Look around your room. Peruse the newspaper. Think about the book you are currently reading. Is there something that piques your interest? Does something make you want to know more about it? If so, that's great! Start your questioning/research with that. If not, pick something anyway, and as you begin to ask questions you will find yourself getting interested. Don't be afraid to follow where your curiosity leads, because it will always be toward creativity.

Take time to look closely at something this week. Take time to question something you take for granted. Look at the familiar with the eyes of a newcomer or child. Follow your curiosity to a new writing project, or ask questions about the one you are currently working on, and watch your creativity increase.