Ten Ways to Cure Writers Block
How to inspire yourself when you are less than inspired.
Writing is hard enough when you're motivated, but when the muse leaves? It's time to take action.
At the root of writers block is something quite simple: Fear. The curse and gift of being a writer is our fervid imagination which, when we are good, evokes the courage to surrender to flow in innocent faith; and when we are convexed with worry, freezes us faster than rabbits that have just grokked Dog.
What Doesn't Work
Anxiety. Worry. Fretting. Obssessing. Trying to think your way out of it - which is rarely effective; like the rabbit, once 'Dog' has entered your awareness, there's no semanticizing in the world that's going to change things.
Yet doing nothing produces less than the optimum result.
And What Does
Ten tried and true tips from a few variously inspired experts:
- Inspiration from unexpected sources. Try downloading "Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases" (free, courtesy of Gutenberg,) which is "A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English". Neatly categorized, you'll be inspired by phrases such as " Illuminative and suggestive" or "Lightless eyes" with which to begin that Next Great Novel.
- Translating Creatively. Randomly select a poem and Babelfish it a language of your choice. Then, Babelfish it again into another language. Then back into English. See where it leads.
- Translating Creatively II Randomly select a poem in a foreign language and attempt to translate what you think it means (this assumes you are choosing one in a language you do not know). This tricks the active left side of your brain (logic) into firing synapses, which is akin to aphrodisia to your right side, who wants to bother you with something more creative. Bothering = good.
- Use What You Have. If you Text/Instant Message at all, you should be logging those (you are logging your deepest, darkest thoughts with strangers, right?). Now open up your logs and steal from yourself freely.
- Meditate. Close your eyes. Think back to the very first memory that you can remember as a child that made you ________. Cry, laugh, feel shame, whatever. Project into the moment actively as an adult and observe yourself, simultaneouslty feeling the event itself as well as judging it objectively and impassively. Now write the experience.
- Step Away From the PC. Walk around your block and find (write it down, please) ten things you've never seen before. When you return home, write them into a story/poem.
- Distract with Social Conscientiousness. Find an injustice and right it. It doesn't have to be a major world event, merely something nagging at you that you've always meant to do something about. Fix this nagging subconscious guilt and you'll open the gates.
- Flirt. How long has it been since you fluttered your eyelashes shamelessly at someone for no reason other than joie de vivre? If the answer did not immediately spring forth, leave this page and go attend to that at once. Sublimation is key here.
- Think Outside of the Box. Watch a foreign movie that you've not seen before without the subtitiles. 'Dreams' by Akira Kurosawa is a wonderful one, as are any of the Krzysztof Kieslowski "Trois Couleurs" but your mileage may vary. While watching, write the imagined story in your head.
- Remember, We Die. "Memento Mori". Make it your mantra. Scribble it on a post it note and stick it on your monitor. Whatever seriousness you think has you in its grasp, like dust, will soon enough be carried by winds into infinity. We are small, and what lies beyond is infinite. Use this as an anchor to the present whenever you are taking yourself too seriously, and as a strategy to connect you into the spiritual realm beyond this existence. That realm being, ironically, filled with the very components that inspire us to ever write at all.
Further References and Links
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