Please get in touch if you have any thoughts or
responses to the subjects I write about, I'd love to
hear what's been useful or interesting, or downright
annoying...
I have something a little embarrassing to admit. Over
the past few days I seem to have developed a bit of a
creative block with writing this newsletter. I’ve been
making cups of tea, hoovering the rug, even doing my
filing, anything really to avoid the inevitable, that I
have to sit down and write. So, jumping swiftly past the
obvious and amusing irony of the situation, its got me
thinking about where these blocks come from, and what
you can do when they occur.
Things I do which make the block bigger and scarier:
Watching tv: however much I love re-runs of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, they numb my mind, and stop me thinking.
Bliss for a while, but ultimately unproductive. Turn it
off. Now.
Being self-critical: critical of the work itself,
then critical of myself for being blocked. Be nice, and
give yourself a break. And some chocolate if necessary.
If you’re going to be blocked, at least be
self-supporting about it.
Filing, cleaning, rearranging the furniture: all useful,
but it’ll just get later and later, and trying to move
the sofa by yourself will only result in (at best)
frustration and (at worst) serious injury to self and
home furnishings. It looks better where it is, put it
down and walk away.
Things I do which work:
Doing something else: creativity thrives on stimulus,
and giving your mind a break from the problem in hand
can provide new perspectives when you are least
expecting them. Go for a walk, look at the trees and the
sky, or wander round a toyshop. Anything with new
colours, sights and sounds will prompt new thoughts to
flow.
Cross-pollination: when I have trouble writing, I go
and draw instead, trouble with a painting, I try writing
about it. Sometimes I cook, or dance around the living
room. One form of creativity can inform another and
increase the flow of ideas.
Clearing space: In “The Artist’s Way” Julia Cameron
advises writing “morning pages”, essentially 3 pages of
long hand writing every morning. In my experience this
is one of the simplest and most effective ways to avoid
any kind of creative block. The discipline of writing,
even when the three pages may be filled with your
shopping list or endless lines of “I can’t think what to
write” gets your mind used to filling space. If you can
fill space, eventually some rather interesting ideas
tend to surface. It also allows you to empty your mind
onto the paper, letting all those annoying nagging
thoughts, worries and ephemera flow out onto the page.
What will be left is clear space in which to get back to
the job in hand, being creative.
Talking about it: new perspectives from another
person (even if and sometimes especially if you disagree
with them) can shift a block quicker than you would
imagine. The process of explaining the problem will
often act as a catalyst for the solution; you’ll
suddenly see where the next step lies. Talk about
something else if you like, you’ll still be surprised at
what occurs to you mid-sentence.
Most important of all though is to DO SOMETHING!
Anything will do, as long as it’s pro-active (even if
not necessarily relevant to the task in hand). Sometimes
when you can’t explode a block, you may just find the
nearest convenient route around it, and looking back, it
may not seem so big after all
