Creativity feeds creativity, passion feeds passion

I recently rediscovered Garry Mulholland's book - "This Is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco" - and it reminded me again what an amazing and affecting force music can be.

Whether you largely agree with Mulholland's choices, or loathe every single one of them, just reading the book you can't help but be affected by his obvious deep enthusiasm and devotion to his subject.

And it's always enjoyable rediscovering too some of the music that defined our own years of growing up, whatever era it was.

It's interesting how great creativity soaked with passion - in this case Mulholland's writing - often comes from an appreciation of another form of creativity - here it's the music he writes about.

What creative works have inspired your own creativity in the past, either directly or indirectly?

Combining different mediums and forms of creating can lead to surprising and exciting new results.

One exercise to try for example is writing whilst listening to a particularly intense piece of music. Whether you write about the music itself or just use the energy, rhythm or ideas, it gives a different slant to the writing.

Think about what other creative activities you can combine or use to stimulate each other and the different ways it can be applied.

(As a final note, if you prefer a story embedded with musical references rather than simply a list of records, then of similar appeal to lovers of music of this era is Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity".)