Inspiration needed, please, thank you.
June 18, 2008No way has it been nine days since I've posted. Those dates are wrong. Typepad is lying to you. Which is something I would never do. Also, butterflies taste like candy. No kidding. If you don't believe me, I guess you can lick one and find out for yourself, scientist.
It's Limbo Week here at Chez Finslippy, the week between the ending of school and the beginning of gloriously exhausting summer camp. Right now Henry has two friends over; they're in the next room, loudly re-enacting various scenes from Kung Fu Panda. Until they start kung fu-ing each other and blood spatters the walls, I'll just stay in here, quietly typing, hoping they don't realize it's lunch time and Food-Giving Woman has not yet supplied them with sustenance.
So I'm struggling with a creative block right now, or not so much a block as the feeling that the creative part of me has shriveled up. There's nothing blocking it, it's just a raisin. How do you go to a raisin for ideas? See, even my metaphors aren't working.
I find one good way of getting past these periods is to talk about them, so here I am, revealing my block to the world. I'm not too surprised, frankly. I got out of my daily writing routine when the miscarriage happened and my daily routine became sleeping and crying. It sounds about right that that part of me has atrophied a bit. And I know that these periods eventually end and are replaced by increased brilliance. (Or maybe that's only true for me.) Unfortunately my work demands more than me patiently waiting for my mojo to return. So I ask you, readers: how do you kickstart your creative energy? Just don't tell me to buy a Sark book, because Scott would never let me live it down.
Reader Comments (106)
Good luck!
Inspriation seems to be a blogospheric issue right now. I say get outside: go for a hike, a walk, to the park whatever. It will make you feel better, I promise.
And if that doesn't work, just listen to John McCain for awhile; that'll piss you off and give you something to write about. :)
To me, some of the best stuff you write (and Dooce too) is just the everyday stuff. The mundane seems funny when you guys write about it. I think most of your readers would agree, we don't care what you write about... JUST WRITE!!!
But don't come to Houston. It's like the bowels of hell down here, with its humidity and heat indexes. Go north, young woman!
Dearest Alice,
I fear just READING about your creative dust bowl will turn my own vine ideas into a Sun Maiden’s dream. I’m superstitious that way.
However, unlike you, I don’t’ always write about personal matters, which tends to widen the playing field a bit. Yahoo News and the like are great fodder resources. For the mentally twisted that is.
Raisiny,Joe
And so on. I'm a humor writer, and I do a lot of navel-gazing for topics, but I've found that my best stuff is usually the stuff I came across outside my comfortable little domain. Yes, it's harder with kids home for the summer, but not impossible. Gotta start somewhere. :-)
Also change of settings is often good. Pack up the laptop and venture somewheres else.
Once I decided to delete the lame-ass first effort and let myself off the hook, I was able to post about why I was blogged down, and ended up able to write a little something about my dad.
So that was a long-winded way of saying that if your blockage is due to guilt and avoidance about something you promised yourself you'd write, or that you wanted to write reallllllly well, just back off, let yourself off the hook, and write whatever comes to mind. Like you just did. Hey, I think you already had your answer.
And yeah, I totally agree with Elizabeth up there--write ANYTHING on here! Every day! Because we check! And we get all happy when there's something new!
As far as the "block," it's clearly something we all go through, and my (comparatively brief) experience with this has been that when you stop looking for a post, one comes and finds you. I know that sounds trite and simplistic and very much like the old universal "truth" that used to be assigned to trying to find a spouse, or a date, or even a decent pizza, but I think it's true. Droughts like this are usually followed by periods of inspiration and productivity, posts that come out of nowhere, and basically write themselves.
They're in there... and out there... and they will find their way to the publish button. And thanks, very much, for your blog.
Then look for something to kickstart your creativity, sort of like a crutch. Like lift a section from another writer and finish it yourself. Or write your version of an article or story or topic. Open a magazine and put your finger on a word and you have to use that word as a topic. Stuff like that.
And we’re glad to have you back, whatever you write.
Though getting out and doing something is often a good idea, as others here have noted, my latest way to get going is to do some random clicking on ye olde internete. Read some crap, get angry over the crap that's getting published, know that you can do better, then do better.