One thing I really don’t like is Sunday newspapers at New Year. They’re always filled with rehashed stuff about the previous 12 months, with pompous commentaries on top about the meaning of those events blah blah. So now, this being the 100th post at youdothatvoodoo, rather than cast a teary eye over the previous 99 entries, I’m instead going to look to the future, because something special’s coming up…

A few years back, I was chosen by my regional screen agency, EM Media, to go on a course that the UK Film Council were running, called Train the Trainers. It was led by screenwriting guru Phil Parker, and we were taught how to deliver the 40 hour Introduction to Screenwriting class that he’d developed. Lots of fun, and it led to me delivering that training in Nottingham on three occasions, hosted by Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies.

While many aspects of Phil’s course are very good indeed, I couldn’t help think something was missing, and that was some time at the front end of the course to explore creativity in general, to ensure that students had tools to develop and enhance their creativity all-round before applying it to the specific task of screenwriting. The material I came up with for that aspect worked really well, and equipped students with skills that they could tap into for the remainder of the course, and which are useful in many other contexts too.

Anyway, I’ve continued to explore the psychology of creativity for some years, studying a variety of models of what creativity is, and how it can be developed further. More importantly, I’ve found practical ways of teaching that material to people in ways that bring it to life: creativity isn’t an academic subject, it’s as much to do with attitude as anything.

Some of the material I’ve come across I’ve mentioned here before, such as Osborn’s typology of creative processes, and its spin-off the SCAMPER grid. Equally, I’ve looked at other sources, such as Koestler’s The Act of Creation - a big influence on 60s creatives from the Beyond the Fringe crew to writers and designers in ad agency studios - and continued to follow up-to-the-minute research on creativity. I’ve also done some research of my own into the impact of physiology on creativity, influenced by my experience of tai chi, and found ways to make that part of the process.

Anyway, all of this and more, you’ll get a chance to experience for yourself at a one day workshop I’ll be running on Saturday July 12. The event is called Connecting with Creativity, and the venue is in Nottingham’s city centre, and if you’re at all interested in learning effective means of developing and enhancing your creative potential, I want to see you there.

Full price seats are £75, but readers of youdothatvoodoo get a discount available until June 12: tickets purchased up until then cost £60. To get in touch, email adrian at youdothatvoodoo dot com and I’ll happily answer at least some of your questions about the event…the only way for sure to know what it’ll be like is to attend. I’m more than confident this will be an exciting and rewarding day, and here’s some feedback offered by my screenwriting students about courses I’ve run:

‘Thank you so much for opening up a new avenue for me.’
‘Thanks for making it brilliant.’
‘Thanks for so much useful and stimulating stuff.’
‘Thanks for a great course and for all your encouragement, focus and guidance.’
‘Cannes do!’