Explore the Underside

I was fortunate enough to snag a box of Naomi Epel’s The Observation Deck, A Took Kit for Writers when it first came out (which means I have the cards, book, and box). Published in 1998 by Chronicle Books, designed by Michele Wetherbee with illustrations by Stefan Gutermuth, it’s a great little pack of inspiration.

In the book’s pages on the prompt, Explore the Underside, Naomi writes, “Examine the realm that lies beneath the surface—the world that is usually unseen.” To paraphrase her ideas later in the piece, she advises readers to ‘pick up a rock and explore the world that lives beneath, take a machine or a toy apart, or look under a piece of furniture to see what someone has hidden there.’

For architects, you might ponder the underside of a surface. You know what’s there and how it’s attached, why that piece of material was used for that particular application, but can you explain it to someone who knows nothing about it? Especially if they can’t see it?

Creativity comes in many forms. The more of them you explore, the stronger your creative muscles will become.