How Do You Get Over Writer's Block?

[SuZQZ]

I have been suffering writer's block, hell, a complete creative block in every aspect for around 7 month's now. I start to feel something, words coming, thought's forming and then poof, they are gone. All I am left with is trite garbage. Even my photography has been lacking with a few rare exceptions. So what have you found that has worked to get your creative side cruising at full speed? What gets your imagination soaring? What unlocks your mind?

[Steven]

I go thru old LP's and listen to them while drinking and perusing the lyrics and artwork on the album covers....

[Msterbeau]

I'm a designer and frankly... most of the time I have no clue what makes me productive and what makes me sit and stare at my piece of paper or computer and twiddle my thumbs. Being a visual artist, looking at images of objects or people can sometimes trigger new ideas that I can warp into whatever the project is I'm working on, but I'm not sure I see that method working for writing. Then again, if you're a photographer too, maybe there's a strong enough connection between the right and left sides of the brain that visual stimulation can positively effect your writers block?? I think our minds go through phases... sometimes cyclic, sometimes more general and longer term.. and you have to ride it out before the creativity comes back. Maybe you need to disrupt you daily routine in some way that causes you to think a little differently. That might be a possible trigger. I'll have to think more...

[SuZQZ]

"...Maybe you need to disrupt you daily routine in some way that causes you to think a little differently. That might be a possible trigger. I'll have to think more..."

That's what I have been beginning to think. If I'm in a lull then perhaps if I shake things up a bit and change pace I might free things up in my head. Arrggghhh, it's soooo frustrating when you have things to write down and purge, put have lost the ability to do so. Even just sitting and writing random words and thoughts in a brainstorming way has failed me where it has worked so well in the past. I think this week I will try shaking things up, trying something new and see if it helps at all. It certainly won't hurt.

[Msterbeau]

"...Maybe you need to disrupt you daily routine in some way that causes you to think a little differently. That might be a possible trigger. I'll have to think more..."

That's what I have been beginning to think. If I'm in a lull then perhaps if I shake things up a bit and change pace I might free things up in my head. Arrggghhh, it's soooo frustrating when you have things to write down and purge, put have lost the ability to do so. Even just sitting and writing random words and thoughts in a brainstorming way has failed me where it has worked so well in the past. I think this week I will try shaking things up, trying something new and see if it helps at all. It certainly won't hurt.

If you have a general idea in your head, try writing now, however poorly worded, so that the idea is down on paper and tangible.. You can always come back to it when you feel more creative and then do justice to the idea. But, if you don't express that idea when you have it... you may lose it down the road or not remember it in it's initial form. That initial form is often the purest, most raw expression of the idea before it's been put through too many of our minds filters.

I have a sheet floating around here from college days that had a bunch of ways to try and break creative design block. One was to solve the exact opposite of the problem your working on. You might try things like that... Goofy, weird, absurd tactics to get your brain in a fresh place.

[Head Wreck]

been suffering a full blown one since university.

cant even write my own reports in work.

if anyone has a solution i'd apreciate it

[Msterbeau]

been suffering a full blown one since university.

cant even write my own reports in work.

if anyone has a solution i'd apreciate it

For you I recommend sex. With aliens. Three times a night for a week. :-)

[freydis]

Indulge in creativity-inducing activities, and surround myself with sensory input; intriguing smells, sounds, etc....

[flowofwoe]

When it's really bad I pull out some unlined paper, and begin writing words at random all over the page. Varying sizes, up, down, sideways. If a word feels like it belongs near another word I place it there.

Then, when I feel I have poured enough words out, I pull out another sheet of paper and try to use as many of those words as possible to write something.

I find it helps unclog the mind.

[Homicidalheathen]

Um well its rather masochistic. I allow myself to fall in and out of love. Although most of my writings are not about that subject, it inspires in me the struggle within to maintain one's sense of self, dignity....ect.......ect....

Or nature, I am inspired by nature. So going camping actually helps.

[Kit Kat P]

I get into a fight. Verbal fight. It seems to get the juices going. Or I go to a bar, sit back and 'write' life stories on the people I'm watching. Eerily enough I seem to be pretty close when I do this.

[jadnifer]

Carry around a small notebook with you.

Write down whatever comes to your mind, whenever it comes to your mind.

Geez, I need to take my own advice.

[torn asunder]

i have no idea... i've been stuck for a while as well...

[

[Head Wreck]

okay, get this.

i can code. code to my hearts content, and tell someone how to do it

dont ask my to write it down. i just cant

[SuZQZ]

Wow! Thank you all. Some really great suggestions. I will try each in turn and see if anything sets a spark. Oh, how I long for a spark... LOL

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I always tried to view creativity in a way i read an article about once... You "work" for it. There is a school of thought that says you only write/draw/paint/etc when your "inspired". But, what if a pro basket ball player only played if he was inspired? He'd suck.

You write/draw/create regularly, regardless if its "good" or not. Just get something down, chop chop. Then again the next day and the next and the next, trying for subtle improvements each time.

There are various versions of the quotation and its been stated by several different people throughout the ages but "Genius is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration" I'd add that also that "inspiration" might not ever hit at all if there's no elbow grease working like a busy little beaver until Mr. Inspiration decides to step in.

[Medea]

I like watching good movies. I'm talking the ones that make you hit all kinds of emotional points, especially ones that make you cry.

Those getting me going.

Though, I -am- a fanfiction writer, amongst other things, so I draw a lot of my inspiration anyway from movies and books.

[Steven]

Jesus this is so simple people. what you need is a Coney from Brays.

[Daniel]

I highly recommend Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies

[T3NM1L3SH1GH]

wine. cheap wine. lots of it. and a good friend. maybe a campfire too. just time to whip out the old socratic method and get into something that i normally over looked and never thought about in a new perspective. a friend that visited me from colorado a few months ago got into it with me about the meaning of existence and 2 hours later we decided that nothing exists. makes you reelavuate the mundane and what makes it so. just a thought.

[Steven]

i have no idea... i've been stuck for a while as well...

[

well obviously Mike you and shortstuff will have to move closer to here because obviously we have Bray's.

your stuck in a rut, you go to Bray's.

you get the Coney dog with extra onions, hell get two of them, which if done properly replaces your writer's block with heartburn.

you then let that heart-burning move thru you, release yoruself to the burn and let it take over and fire the muse which inivitably asks of you....so then what is the truth behind that burning that you are now experiencing?

hmmmm....it could be a burning passion for truth.

write about it.

could be a burning of the loins for the longing of a good tall woman.

write about it.

could be the burning anger the black man feels when he is discriminated against or the brown man when he is reduced to being a wet back pulling weed in your filtthy rich white man's world.

write about it.

could be the burning steel of your fire arm as you repel the oppressor or the burning exhaust of your fleet footed motorcycle as it roars out it's intention for freedom and nothing less.

write about it.

see? Bray's is good medicine and your now in the zone.

plus, we could hook up and get beers.

talk to Gague about it, I'm quite sure she'll agree tha tthe stars are aligning themselves this way.

[Msterbeau]

I would recommend

Spending time with a cute boy

Oh, already done

:-)

[mallochai]

I've always found that research is a great way to get the creative process going. I find something I want to learn more about, look into it's history and lore, or how something works, or how it's made, and it gives me all sorts of different ways to THINK about that thing/topic, which gives me ideas for projects.

I'm not a writer, but a painter. However, this method words for my s.o. too, who actually went to masters college to be a writer, so he likes to think that he knows what he's talking about.

[maeve]

I read what I want to write. In other words, if I want to write poetry then I read poetry, if I want to write fiction then I read fiction, and so on. I also try to reconnect with my energy source. That is, I'm an introvert in the sense that I draw energy from within myself, so I focus on alone type activities...hence the reading, or maybe sewing, gardening, meditation...If you're an extroveted type (think of it this way...if you fell energized after leaving a party chances are you're extroverted VS feeling drained after leaving a party, then you're introverted) then find activities that will help build your energy, perhaps a party, or shopping, something where people are involved. Hope this helps.

[Kit Kat P]

how's the creative flow going?