“If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.”
Ken Robinson
Ken Robinson
Tom Agna
Tom Agna is an Emmy award winning comic writer and comedian who has appeared on an episode of Seinfeld and numerous late night shows including Letterman, Conan and the Tonight Show. He has also written for such diverse audiences as Kurt Vonnegut and Larry the Cable Guy.
Tom has often thought about his own creative process, though its still very hard for him to define where his creativity comes from. He said that it had been there since he was young, when he had a very active imagination, creating fantasy situations that scared even him, and was always ‘performing’ for his fellow students and adults around him. Even from that time, his goal was to make people laugh.
Creativity is not always there, though. It is something that must be cultivated. One of the most important insights that he had was that most of the time, it’s simply a matter of being more observant, being aware of what is going on around him. Both in his writing and humor, ideas come from the most mundane, everyday sources. He is not ‘inventing’ anything, but he is looking at the ‘details’ of things from a new and different perspective. As he related, “…its telling people about life, a slice of life. As a performer, I see myself as the representative of the entire audience.” He related that if he is in a situation where he needs to produce something, he does consciously begin to ‘attune’ himself to being more observant. That, though, does not always produce tangible results, and it is sometimes hard to get the ideas flowing. In those cases, it’s just a matter of getting something on paper and once that starts, the ideas start to come. He does not know where they come from, but he knows when to trust his instincts. That sometimes involves taking risks. And as importantly, he keeps his ‘ego’ and ‘filters’ in check and does not prejudge his own or others’ ideas. Just starting with an idea can lead to connections that he never saw at the beginning, suggesting a confirmation of the statement ‘The deeply individual nature of the process suggests that creativity does not follow a straight and narrow path, and that it cannot be predicted.’ (Twisting Knobs, p.18)
Much of the essence of Tom’s creativity can be seen in some of the same skills that we are looking at in this course; perceiving, seeing things that are there but may be hidden from view, overlooked, or from a different angle and in a different light. Abstracting, presenting the ‘essence’ of something in its details. Patterning, seeing life’s patterns but then, as with many comics, providing a ‘twist.’ Empathizing, being able to connect to an audience. His creative process is not that different from that described in ‘Twisting Knobs and Connecting Things, ‘creativity is not a magical process, but rather creative ideas emerge from combining pre-existing ideas and concepts in unique and new ways.’ From one perspective, creativity is not something that can be trained; there is a natural part of one’s personality. But it IS something that can be cultivated and enhanced, by being observant, practicing these skills, and exposing oneself to diverse and varied experiences. Most of all, its being aware – too often, I can go through my days not noticing what is going on around me. I know that in my writing creative processes, it is just about getting going to shake loose ideas and as Tom said, putting it down and not prejudging it. If I worry about the results before I have even started, then I would never be able to start! While I don’t think I will ever be a truly ‘creative’ person, I know that increasing my level of creativity is not something beyond my reach.
Tom Agna is an Emmy award winning comic writer and comedian who has appeared on an episode of Seinfeld and numerous late night shows including Letterman, Conan and the Tonight Show. He has also written for such diverse audiences as Kurt Vonnegut and Larry the Cable Guy.
Tom has often thought about his own creative process, though its still very hard for him to define where his creativity comes from. He said that it had been there since he was young, when he had a very active imagination, creating fantasy situations that scared even him, and was always ‘performing’ for his fellow students and adults around him. Even from that time, his goal was to make people laugh.
Creativity is not always there, though. It is something that must be cultivated. One of the most important insights that he had was that most of the time, it’s simply a matter of being more observant, being aware of what is going on around him. Both in his writing and humor, ideas come from the most mundane, everyday sources. He is not ‘inventing’ anything, but he is looking at the ‘details’ of things from a new and different perspective. As he related, “…its telling people about life, a slice of life. As a performer, I see myself as the representative of the entire audience.” He related that if he is in a situation where he needs to produce something, he does consciously begin to ‘attune’ himself to being more observant. That, though, does not always produce tangible results, and it is sometimes hard to get the ideas flowing. In those cases, it’s just a matter of getting something on paper and once that starts, the ideas start to come. He does not know where they come from, but he knows when to trust his instincts. That sometimes involves taking risks. And as importantly, he keeps his ‘ego’ and ‘filters’ in check and does not prejudge his own or others’ ideas. Just starting with an idea can lead to connections that he never saw at the beginning, suggesting a confirmation of the statement ‘The deeply individual nature of the process suggests that creativity does not follow a straight and narrow path, and that it cannot be predicted.’ (Twisting Knobs, p.18)
Much of the essence of Tom’s creativity can be seen in some of the same skills that we are looking at in this course; perceiving, seeing things that are there but may be hidden from view, overlooked, or from a different angle and in a different light. Abstracting, presenting the ‘essence’ of something in its details. Patterning, seeing life’s patterns but then, as with many comics, providing a ‘twist.’ Empathizing, being able to connect to an audience. His creative process is not that different from that described in ‘Twisting Knobs and Connecting Things, ‘creativity is not a magical process, but rather creative ideas emerge from combining pre-existing ideas and concepts in unique and new ways.’ From one perspective, creativity is not something that can be trained; there is a natural part of one’s personality. But it IS something that can be cultivated and enhanced, by being observant, practicing these skills, and exposing oneself to diverse and varied experiences. Most of all, its being aware – too often, I can go through my days not noticing what is going on around me. I know that in my writing creative processes, it is just about getting going to shake loose ideas and as Tom said, putting it down and not prejudging it. If I worry about the results before I have even started, then I would never be able to start! While I don’t think I will ever be a truly ‘creative’ person, I know that increasing my level of creativity is not something beyond my reach.