Mess

Abstract

Throughout this chapter, we argue that the creative process is inherently messy and is largely the result of meeting and overcoming the challenges we face in everyday life. Often, things don't go quite as planned when, for instance, we schedule time for intensive writing or draft elaborate schemes for building houses; it is the situational ability of the writer or craftsman to create order and structure in the middle of the mess that ends up making all the difference. We therefore argue that we can benefit from paying attention to our everyday processes and problem-solving activities when going about writing and thinking about creativity. Creativity is thus more about mess than about methodology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)