You’re sailing on the sea of creativity (creativisea?) when suddenly the sails drop. No more wind to push you forward. And the sun is making you sweat. What do you do to get back on course? Today, J and K talk about how we get inspiration when our creativity is lacking.
J I default to exploring the peaks of others’ imaginations when my creativity wanes. Whether that means revisiting a book or film/tv show that I find particularly inspiring or even playing a video game with a great story, it all serves to stoke the embers. Taking a walk in nature helps, too, because few things rival it in its capacity to get the creative wheels turning. Who can look at the ocean and not find something worth writing about? The exercise also breathes literal life into me, as well, because often a lack of mental energy is directly tied to being physically stagnant. And of course, having a writing partner whose imagination often flows when mine ebbs definitely keeps me going through the creative doldrums.
K I have several approaches.
Stare into the void. Probably my least effective. This is where I peruse social media, do random google searches, watch dog videos – all in the hopes that something, anything, distracts me from my dried pen so that I can think without feeling inadequate for losing the creativity in the first place.
Consume. This is where I take in other creative works. Watch a scifi show, read a fantasy novel, play a video game with a compelling story. These all can be inspiring as they are different ways of telling stories. And often I can read something my writing partner has done in our own story and feel that energize me.
Parallel creating. I’ve found that using my creativity in different ways not only keeps my mind in the creative flow but finding things which allow my mind to wander at the same time makes it so that new ideas can pop in unexpectedly. It’s like I switched lanes on a highway – still going to the same destination but different. The repetition of making jewelry, the immersion of playing an instrument, the visuals of landscape photography… I’m still creating and that’s my favorite way to try to get inspired for writing.
How do you get out of the doldrums?