Creativity Varies

[Peg Herring]

I met with my web guy yesterday, and as usual, we ended up talking about a zillion things only marginally related to updating my website. We find similarities in our work, although he's a self-proclaimed geek and I'm SO not-geeky, at least in the technological sense. However, creativity is essential in his work, just as in mine. It's just that I work with words, trying to put them together just the right way, and he works with code, manipulating it to do ever more creative things in cyber-space.

To do what we do, we both need blocks of uninterrupted time, not too far apart from each other, or we forget where we were headed and have to backtrack. We both experience the "ah-ha" moment when a snarl unravels, apparently without conscious effort, and it may come while we're driving or mowing the lawn or trying to get to sleep. We both work to do something new using the same tools everybody else uses, and persistence and talent come into play when we're successful.

Oddly, the world calls my work "creative" and his work "technical." But what we discover as we talk is that there's a lot of technical know-how in what I do, and there's a lot of creativity in what he does.

Another thing we have in common? We both love it when the plan comes together.