A shot of creativity

Drew Dernavich submitted a cartoon to the New Yorker in 2007 and it was rejected. He refined and simplified the concept and the result ran in a recent issue. Here’s how Dernavich achieved this result:

My approach was to say “whatever,” move on to the next thing, forget completely that I had ever done this cartoon in the first place, go to sleep, get up the next day and drink coffee, eat and drink as I usually do, work at some stuff, work at some other stuff, get up earlier some days and later some days, do social things every once in a while…

And it goes on like that for awhile until concluding:

…and then wake up one day and then think “hey - I have a funny idea about warning shots that’s better than the one I had several years ago.”

Csikszentmihalyi aside, this might be the truest description of the creative process ever written. Shit just takes time and creative people make time. (via @Atul_Gawande)

• Drew Dernavich