The Art of the Idea

The principal at my school recently attended an amazing conference, and this afternoon she spoke to us about one of the sessions she attended - The Art of the Idea, by John Hunt. I've since googled this guy (I hadn't heard of him before) and have discovered his website, The Art of the Idea, and his book, The Art of the Idea.

The reason I'm posting about this is that I wanted to share a few of the points my principal mentioned - the ones that I think apply the most to us writerly types :-)

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• Logic (facts) kills creativity. Those of us who write fiction (especially fantasy) don't have a problem here - why bother with silly things like logic and facts when you can just make stuff up?!
• Trust your instincts or they will go away. If your gut feel is that that passage/scene/chapter/idea isn't working - then change it! Don't ignore your instincts, or it's likely that your critique partner/beta reader/agent/editor will pick up on that exact part that your instinct told you to change in the first place.
• It is not plagiarism if you copy ideas. My favourite point! Of course, if your entire novel has the same idea as someone else's, well... I'd say that's not a good way to go. But I'm happy to admit that I've "borrowed" ideas from all over the place and pieced them together to create my own work.
• We don't know what we don't know until we do what we normally don't do. (Feel free to read that sentence again if it doesn't make sense yet!) So... if you're following the same writing routine every single day and inspiration just isn't coming your way, mix it up a little. Do something completely different. Break away from the mundane, the habits.

And that's it for now :-)
Do you have any pointers for nurturing creativity and the growth of ideas?