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When the water drops and refreezes’: Where do new ideas come from?



‘ That happens when the water drops from the guttering, and refreezes’ I said to myself.
The ice had formed in an unexpected way and I had arrived at an explanation for my observation.
‘When the water drops and refreezes’ stayed in my consciousness as a promising first line for a poem.
I could easily have become involved in the process of creating a few more lines of poetry in some form or other. (I did mention my habit of introducing creativity into conversations).
Instead, I became aware of the possibility of a line of thought that would link with a longer term preoccupation, namely the production of material for a chapter on creativity for the new addition of dilemmas of leadership.
In one classical stage model of creativity, I had moved from preparation for the book to incubation, The period where I am not consciously thinking about the book, and then insight, the aha or Eureka moment, of conscious realisation of the implications of the new idea.
As I ‘speak, I am trying to capture the idea for its further progression in which might also be called the implementation or actualisation stage.

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