Want a quick route to inspiration and creativity? There probably isn't one, but one of the first steps is to swallow your pride. While brainstorming about ideas my girlfriend could use to create a new and eye-catching work of art, I suggested that we take the idea of Hieronymus Bosch's famous work "Garden of Earthly Delights" and implement the idea with a twist: use stuffed animals. Pose dozens and dozens of stuffed animals with one another, doing lewd and lascivious things with each other. Take a picture of the scene and that's your piece. (The name? "Garden of Furry Delights")

Is that a really terrible idea? Of course it is. I knew that long before I ever mentioned it aloud.

I don't apologize for bad ideas because I cannot count the number of times that I've spouted a bad idea and then someone else chimes up with another idea, in response to mine, that isn't half bad. The rest of the group takes the idea, runs with it, and end up with a final solution that's far better than my suggestion. I'm sure the people who are writing television shows experience this all the time.

The key is in being able to wear humiliation like a badge (sometimes), and in surrounding yourself with people who won't just write off your less-than-good ideas as nonsense. This process doesn't even have to occur in a group. I consider every idea I have, and while a lot of them are bad, I end up refining several of them into resuable ideas.

You need a lot of rough to sort through in order to find the diamonds.