Twist it.

I worked with a comedy writer who taught me a lot, but there's one lesson that stood out:

When you write a joke, take the familiar - and twist it.  The joke is guaranteed to connect through familiarity, but it's original.

Balloon dog, by Jeff Koons, is a series of sculptures and one of the more iconic art works of the 20th century.  The series follows all the visual rules of ballon dogs, except for 1 thing: All the dogs are made of highly brushed stainless steel.  Koons twisted it.

The Cronut is a doughnut, but wait, it's a Croissant too.  Pastry chef Dominique Ansel twisted the doughnut and created something utterly unique.  (And delicious).

In the 1970’s, funk bassist Larry Graham started to ‘slap’ his bass guitar to try and emulate the sound of his band’s absent drummer.  In the 80’s Mark King took this unique approach and ran with it, turning the oft' ignored back up instrument into a powerhouse lead for his band Level 42.  Graham and King twisted it.

I could go on with examples and this would become the world’s longest blog post. (Is that my way of twisting the regular blog post?  OK, maybe not.)

The point is, whatever your creative outlet is - twist it.  It works.  It gets attention, people understand it because they have context, and you feel creatively satisfied.  You may even feel like a revolutionary…