Solutions For When You’re Fighting Creativity Blockages
Everybody has to deal with a bit of brain fog now and again. Those who continuously produce high levels of content in terms of audio, video, or the written word are going to experience mental blocks. You need to get the work done, and you can’t.
Guys like Stephen King can help you get your mind under you again, and make that brain productive. He says to block out distractions as best you can—good advice. Following we’ve got a few other tips for you to consider.
A Change Of Space Or Pace
Sometimes your brain is blocked up because you’re in a mental rut, and you just need to shake things up a bit. Granted, you don’t want to be distracted. But if you’re really stuck, you might want to put down your writing and spend an hour doing something completely different.
You want to flush your mind. Depending on the deadline, this could be a time of a few hours or a few days. Some writers get caught pacing around for weeks, though, so be careful; too much space and you may lose the thread entirely.
Got Friends? Try Written Telephone
One thing that can be a lot of fun is a sort of visual “telephone” game. You and some friends have a stack of papers. The more friends the better. You write a phrase on the top sheet, then pass it to the left. Whoever is sitting to your left reads that phrase, puts the paper on the bottom of the stack, then draws a picture of whatever that phrase was.
They then pass the whole stack with the picture at the top. The next person looks at the picture and tries to figure out what the written phrase was from it. There’s no winning this game, things quickly go hilariously awry, and a lot of randomness develops that is fine fodder for creative writing or other content creation where you might be having trouble.
Music, Brainstorming, And “The Fugue”
You don’t want distractions when you’re writing. You do want it to be pleasant, and enjoyable. Music can be a great help. Don’t get that new album from that artist you love, you’ll be distracted. Put together a playlist of your favorite music from that artist and others among your favorite musicians. Music you already know, music you’re familiar with.
Under this music, you might do a little brainstorming. That is to say, you might get a blank sheet of paper or a blank Word.doc, sit down, and write out your ideas. Give it a moment, come back to it, take what you like, table the rest.
Something else that can help is finding your “fugue”. A fugue is a complex musical arrangement which results in a sort of unique, specific, contrapuntal sound. A continuous interweaving. Well, you can make the same happen with imagination, and so acquire unique, worthwhile thoughts continuously.
Basically, a cup of coffee, a little exercise, a moment reading something that strikes you as profound in the morning, a good breakfast, checking your email—whatever your little routine or ritual is, figure that out. Once you’ve got it down, finishing a certain set of steps will naturally set your brain up for imagining.
Board Games With Dice And Imagination
Something else that can really stimulate your imagination is board games. We’re not talking Monopoly or Shoots and Ladders (though these have their place), we’re talking role-playing RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. You’re with your party, you’re throwing ancient clay or green emulsion dice or some other variant, and your Dungeon Master is lining out scenarios.
Just cherry-pick a few of the best ones from your group and flesh them out in a context which fits whatever content project you’re trying to get done. With games like D&D, all kinds of random information is going to swim to the surface, and some of it is fine fodder for creative writing.
A Quick Bit Of Exercise
Deliberate exercise that’s hard or swift, but gets the heart pumping, can serve to stimulate the mind. Take a walk around the block, or the lake, or in the hills. Go for a jog. Find somewhere where you can just let your body go, and allow the mind to float off toward something unique.
Getting The Most Out Of An Imagination-Blocked Mind
Exercise, board games, music, brainstorming, finding your creation “fugue”, games like written telephone, and changing things up are all fine ways to stimulate your imagination.
You basically just need to get some new ideas in your brain when things get monotonous, and there are many different ways to do so. Hopefully some of these ideas work for you, or at least serve to stimulate your imagination.