The final winner of my month-long blog giveaway is Diane Waddell. Diane, email me your postal address, and I'll mail your prize (a copy of the anthology, Feeding Kate, and an elephant sculpture) to you. I hope you've all had fun with this contest as we've built up to the pub date for Every Broken Trust. And now, to today's blog post.
Sparking Your
Creativity
As an artist and creative person, I can experience times
when I reach down for ideas, for creative excitement, for images, and come up
temporarily empty. These have usually been times that have combined lots of
creative overwork and lots of business work—taxes, promotion, correspondence,
contracts, freelance editing, etc. This kind of emptiness and feeling
creatively dry can be terrifying, but I’m now used to it, and I know what to do
to refill the well and spark new creativity. In these circumstances, it’s
necessary to take time to do things to build up new creativity energy within
you. So here are ten ideas to get you started.
Journal Writing—This is the backbone of the creative life,
especially for writers. I’m not necessarily talking about a daily diary. This
is a notebook in which you write about what you see and hear, turning it into
dialogue or sensory description. This is where you can work with writing
prompts from books, workshops, tapes, and DVDs, your version of the pianist’s daily
scales. Set a kitchen timer for a few minutes and do some freewriting to unload
some of the chattering of your surface mind and move into deeper ideas.
Read Poetry—I’m a poet, as well as a novelist, but I’ve been
surprised by how many commercially successful novelists I’ve met who say they
regularly or occasionally read poetry as a springboard for their writing. It
actually makes great sense because the poet deals in imagery, which is the
language of the right (creative) brain. I know that, whenever I read poetry, it sets
my mind whirling with tons of ideas and images. I have come up with ideas for
entire novels from reading a poem.
Read Something Very Different for You—If you always read and
write poetry, check out a popular novel. If you’re a mystery reader, take a
look at what science fiction writers are coming up with. If you read and write
literary fiction, pick up a romance novel. Jog your mind from its habitual ruts
of thinking and imagining. Stretch out of your comfort zone. Even if you don’t
like what you read, it should still shake up your mind enough to start
generating ideas, images, and characters.
Singlehanded Brainstorming—Most of us have been taught how
to do and forced to sit through group brainstorming sessions before. Take those
techniques and a sheet of paper with pen (or iPad or laptop), get comfortable, set
a timer again, and start throwing out ideas at top speed. Same rules as with
the group process. You can’t disqualify any idea, no matter how unrealistic.
You want to generate as many ideas as you can as quickly as you can. Just list
them down the page—or even use a voice recorder to capture them. After the timer goes off, you can go down the
list considering the possibilities you’ve listed. Look for possibilities to
combine aspects of ideas. Write down any new ideas that get sparked by your
consideration of the ideas already down on the page. Choose one or two
promising (or least abhorrent) ideas and freewrite about them in your journal.
Making Lists—I love listmaking. Make lists of ideas, of
characters, of backgrounds you’d like to use someday, of isolated bits of
dialogue or description, of actions you’d like to see a character to take. My
favorite is to write a list of scenes I’d like to read—exciting scenes,
action-filled scenes, emotional scenes, surprising scenes, suspenseful scenes.
They don’t have to have anything to do with any project you’re working on or
any character you are writing or have written. They just need to be scenes you’d
love to read—because scenes you’d love to read are scenes you’d love to write.
Visit a Museum, Gallery, Play, Film, Concert—We writers live
and breathe words. Sometimes we need to get out of our heads and see or hear
art that isn’t primarily word-based. It can be especially fruitful to go to a
film in a language you don’t understand or an art exhibit of a kind you know
nothing about. When we have no words to use to explain or understand what we’re
seeing, our brains are kicked into another mode of functioning that can become
quite generative. Wander around a gallery or museum and take in the colors and
shapes. Sit in a concert hall or movie theater and let the music or film engulf
you completely, washing through your brain. Come out seeing or hearing in a
slightly different mode.
Draw, Paint, Knit, Spin, Sew—Even better than looking at art
is making it. Sink your hands into clay or fiber. Splash ten different colors
next to each other, taking note of the changes each new color creates. Feel the
texture of the fabric, thread, yarn, fiber as you work with it to make
something new. Take a penciled line and see what you can create with it. All of
this also kicks in the right brain, the imagistic, creative part of us. Stay in
beginner mind without worrying how “good” your art will be. This is—and should
be—play, completely carefree and innocent.
Go for a Walk—Physical exercise is always a good thing for
us sedentary word slugs, but even more important than its many health benefits
are the creative benefits of simply moving your body through space. As you move
around, your brain begins to get unstuck and to move, as well. A nice, long
walk outdoors (preferably in scenic surroundings) can often jumpstart the solution
to a creative dry spell. Sometimes a sterile period can arise from being
overstressed. Walks are one of the best ways to counter such stress and relax
the mind and body.
Arrange Flowers/Rearrange Some Belongings—In the Chinese art
of feng shui, rearranging 27 items will start stuck soul energy flowing again.
Moving belongings into new configurations, trying for a more pleasing pattern,
has long been a cure for the blues and the blahs. We are pattern-recognizing
and pattern-creating organisms. To change the habitual patterns that surround
us charges us with new energy. A
smaller, simpler version of this is to gather or buy some flowers and assemble
them into flower arrangements that please our aesthetic sensibilities. Spending
a little time in creating pleasing, artistic arrangements of flowers or accessories
will provide a creative boost to stuck energies.
Go to Lunch with a Creative Friend or Two—Everyone has one
or more friends or acquaintances who are creative sparklers. Like the child’s
fireworks favorite, they give off showers of sparks, or creative ideas,
constantly. They are positive and upbeat and always focused on possibilities.
Spending some time with them will leave you filled with ideas, energy, and
excitement. It’s always worthwhile to give them a call and set up a relaxed lunch
in a nice place. Rather than complain about how dry and sterile things are for
you right at the moment, ask them what’s new with them and what they see as possibilities
for the future. As they take off
shooting into the blue yonder, follow them wholeheartedly and build on all
their ideas. You’ll walk away at the end of lunch with a big smile on your face
and a bunch of ideas bubbling in your unconscious. Cherish these friends, even
if they are unrealistic and immature. Their wild, creative energy is invaluable
when your own has temporarily deserted you.
One or more of these ten methods should start your creative
powers working once again. I’ve never had to go through more than a couple of
these at a time to get my creative mojo stirring. Post this list near your
desk, and don’t spend any time or energy bewailing it when a creative dry spell
hits. Just reach for this and try whichever of these ideas looks most appealing
at the time. If the first doesn’t completely prime your creative pump, move to
another of them. Creativity never leaves, but sometimes it needs a spark to
start the engine running again. So spark your creativity!
