I recently came across a blog that gave me both a new vocabulary word and a new technique to boost creativity. When I read Musings from a Writer’s Brain–Moodling, I thought the blogger might have made the word up and checked for myself.
Googling the word proved tricky. MOODLE came up, but not moodling. Moodle happens to be an open-source learning management system for distance and online learning. Something that has become a necessary part of our COVID-19 pandemic world.
But that was not what the blogger Joanne Guidoccio was talking about. Her blog referred to the idea of moodling from Brenda Ueland’s book If You Want to Write
Ueland stresses that “the imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.”
Urban Dictionary defines the word as daydreaming or letting your mind wander and doing nothing.
Interesting that doing nothing and letting your mind wander will improve creative thinking, isn’t it?
But the fact is some well-known names are among those who practiced moodling.
Isaac Newton was moodling under an apple tree in 1666 and an apple fell on his head which in turn led to his theory on gravity.
Albert Einstein spent days and nights in the quiet solitude after the breakup of his marriage. That moodling period led to his general theory of relativity.
Massachusetts of Technology’s The Writing Process includes moodling as a way to generate ideas and recommends a structured technique for writers
CEOBuddy.com suggests trying noodling and moodling if you’re looking for creative ideas to expand your business.
There’s also a YouTube channel that demonstrates how to use doodling to jumpstart creativity.
Moodling, noodling, doodling, idling, dawdling, and puttering to improve my imagination…
with summer here, sounds like a plan to me.
What do you think?
