Lack of creativity/imagination?

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Well, I got an A in Creative Writing.

People used to say I was creative when I was growing up, but looking back I realize that wasn't so. I was just noticing things they didn't, and they thought I imagined it. Ergo, "imaginative".

Okay, here's my two cents. And I was actually surprised, because I answered yes, but when I read what people wrote, I started to think.

I have a very vivid imagination, but my creativity is quite limited. The only things I really like to do is roleplaying, writing, and photography.

But that's really it.

I answered yes- I'm pretty good at writing and have been told a lot of times that I have an interesting way with words. I have an extremely vivid imagination and can often think of scenarios and ways to solve a problem that wouldn't occur to others.

however, as I read about your problems with drawing I recognised myself in that immediately. as a child I loved to draw, felt the need to draw, but lacked the creativity to draw from my head- I had a few images that I drew repeatedly. there was this image of an erupting volcano that I saw somewhere and I would draw it constantly- I loved it's simplicity and symmetry. I remember my parents had mixed feelings about it: it was a damn good drawing, but why an erupting volcano? what would Freud had to say about that? lol

still I catch myself at times not being capable to imagine certain things- when I write fiction I find that I have an immense difficulty with writing from someone's point of view, unless that character is at least loosely based on myself and emotions that I've experienced.

also, my friends tell me constantly that I lack imagination, when I'm supposed to help them in a situation that I've never been in ("what would you do?") my answers always are labeled "black and white thinking" or too "textbook".

I don't know where I stand neurologically, but I've had loads of trouble with this all my life. I'm great at writing, drawing, and lots of crafty things (so I get the "creative" label all the time, although it doesn't seem deserved)... only someone else needs to give me an idea first, and then I'm able to carry on from there. I remember dreading the written portion of standardized tests for this reason. Occasionally, we'd get a prompt that told us to write about whatever we wanted. Other kids would be thrilled, but I'd waste half of the allotted time just sitting there panicked, trying to come up with something, anything. I needed a starting point. Technical writing, on the other hand, is my friend.

I can relate to the lack of imagination thing very much, but haven't understood it in myself enough to explain it in detail.

When it comes to imagining things, I usually see a vague picture in my mind and can sometimes translate it, but I have trouble filling in details to make it look complete. As a result I usually end up with something minimal, bland, sterile or not quite right.
I also have a tendency towards things like symetry, straight lines, making things the same size (I don't think I've ever drawn anything without a ruler).. and also patterns....so any sort of creativity involving randomosity is not possible for me.
My lack of imagination frustrates me because it means I can't use art or writing as alternative mediums of expressing myself when I can't express myself verbally . I can't use it as an 'outlet' so to speak.
I generally find that I concentrate harder and get into the project more when I'm replicating something.
Any sort of creative project that involves repetition I'm good at. eg. beading, origami paper cranes (3,000 of 'em so far )

I have always had a strong "creative" drive, without the kind of skills I prefered. I can be perfectionistic and this caused me lots of frustration. I wanted my end product to be something others thought took a lot of effort and skill to produce.

Creativity is relative. Is it instead that you like things to be structured and don't want to break the structure you already know? Maybe adding something else breaks the structure you already know?

Maybe you just don't know the rules of being "Creative".

"Every artist is a cannibal. Every poet is a thief." - Bono

It has also been remarked that Aspies make interesting connections that most people don't. In my view, making connections is creativity. No one truly creates out of nothing. Every artist takes what has already exists and either combines it with something else, or pushes it further than it was before.

For example I read a lot of Science articles and then say "what would happen if this was true/a viable product/perfected?" and then I change the world to fit it. I do in incrementally. For example, flying cars, would people still drive on roads? Would the roads slowly decay? If they decayed what if something made it impossible for the flying cars to fly anymore? What could do that? If that happened and there were no roads would society collapse? Etc. Etc. Etc. I then have a story about an 18th century type community that has little in the way of folk knowledge but may have a lot of old books and artifacts that over a few generations that very few understand. Maybe the outside world is already rebuilding but missed this community.

Anyway step by step. Does that help or would even more granularity help.

Really it's a formula that I follow.

As far as drawing is concerned, I learned to draw the human body, the structure of it. It's like knowing how a bridge needs to be built, engineering. I usually think "what size person does this need to be?". The details are more a trick of the way my pen moves when I'm drawing. I can then copy that look if I need to draw something like a comic with a reoccurring character. Things like hairstyle etc. seem to just happen as I draw, this isn't being creative like I'm doing it intuitively, they're more what my hand is doing. If that makes any sense.