The Key to Creativity: The Science Behind Ideas and How Daydreaming Can Change the World

The author of "The Key to Creativity" was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and prescribed rest and relaxation, but her brain was anything but restful. She investigated why we are creative and what conditions must be present for us to make our best work, using characters from Alice in Wonderland as inspiration. She discovered that having a tortured and lonely existence is not conducive to producing great art and that being able to complete a task on time and according to expectations is as important as thinking outside the box.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 25 May 2023
Publisher: Greystone Books,Canada

Quiet, by Susan Cain, and When, by Daniel Pink, are two books that readers who enjoy this fervent investigation into creativity and the human brain will appreciate.

Hilde Ostby, a writer and journalist, was riding to work one day when she crashed headfirst into a stone bridge. She was given rest and relaxation at the hospital after being diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. Her brain, on the other hand, was anything but tranquil; she had a flurry of new writing ideas. She had never experienced so many epiphanies before. At the same time, simple activities like navigating an airport seemed insurmountable. Had the concussion turned her into the stereotype of the tortured artist, making her more creative but less able to function in society? Or was there something else at work? What exactly makes someone creative?

In The Key to Creativity, Ostby delves deeply into why we are creative and what conditions must be met for us to produce our best work, whether it be a painting, a piece of writing, or simply a good email. Ostby draws inspiration from Alice in Wonderland, investigating why we have ideas that seemingly come out of nowhere, such as the Cheshire Cat, and how we can quiet our inner critic, such as the rule-obsessed Queen of Hearts. Along the way, she speaks with artists of all stripes and interviews psychiatrists and neurologists who specialize in understanding what happens in the brain when we are at our most creative. She discovers that having a tortured and lonely existence is not necessarily conducive to producing great art, and that being able to complete a task on time and according to others' expectations is as important as being able to think outside the box.

Dimension: 139 x 215 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781771648301