Mark McGuinness

“We like to think of creativity as a space for untrammelled imagination, free from all constraints. Yetwhile freedom, rule-breaking and inspiration are undoubtedly essential to the creative process, thepopular image of creativity overlooks another aspect: examine the life of any great artist and youwill find evidence of hard work, discipline and a hard-won knowledge of the rules and conventionsof their medium.”

“You might get up at noon and work at home in your dressing gown, in a pigsty of a living room. You might check into a different hotel room every day and work on the bed. Your creative process and working habits might look like total chaos to an outsider, but if they work for you, that’s all that matters. And there will be some method in the madness – patterns in your daily activities that are vital to your creativity. These are the things you need to do to keep your imagination alive – whether it’s sitting at a desk by 6am, using the same pen, notebook or make of computer, hitch-hiking across America, putting rotten apples in your desk so that the scent wafts into your nostrils as you work, or sitting in your favourite café with a glass of absinthe.”

“The wonderful thing about modern technology is the amount of communication and information-sharing it facilitates. And the awful thing about modern technology is the amount of communication and information-sharing it facilitates.”