When You Really Want To Create Something, But Just… Can’t.

I had a question about this from a student this week, and since I went to all the effort of typing out a long response, I thought I’d share it here too in case anyone else finds it useful 🙂

The question is, in essence, Why Am I Having A Creative Block And What Can I Do About It?

In my experience there are three typical causes for this, and unfortunately they’re not the kind of thing that someone else can diagnose – it’s about learning to know your own thought processes and examine your own life to see which one might be applicable at the time. 

It’s COMPLETELY normal, and even long-term professionals sometimes get struck by it and take a while to figure out what the cause is. So congrats: if you’re experiencing this, you’re a normal human being 😉 

1) Tired. 

Basically what is says on the can: your body and/or brain is tired, and creativity takes effort. It’s not *work*, per se, but it does require *effort*, and sometimes that effort just isn’t there to be had. If you’re having trouble focusing on other things you usually do to relax, that’s a decent sign you’re looking at a Tired Block. (For me, if I’m having trouble reading more than a couple of pages from a book, especially a book I usually love, I know I’m in the middle of a big fat Tired.) 

The cure here is patience and self care. Don’t try to force yourself (though write something down if it comes to you, just a line or two or a fragment or a phrase or whatever it is that comes), and focus on refilling your creative well.

Actually, it helps if you think of creativity like a well, one that you have to keep intentionally filled in order to be able to draw any “creative juice” out of it. Which is why a lot of pro writers often have post-novel ennui when they finish a major project: you’ve depleted your creative well and need to spend time refilling it and resting before getting up to go again. 

Do lots of things that you enjoy just because you enjoy them. Revel gloriously in what delights you: favourite books, movies, tv shows. Get outside into nature and experience peace or awe or gratitude. Learn a new subject, or in this case, look at the subject you’re already learning and practise extrapolating story ideas from them. Figure out what you LOVE, what makes you go, “oh, so cool!” and indulge. (Healthily, obviously. I’d advise against, say, casual murder as a form of creative-well fulfillment 😄 ) 

2) Fear. 

Oh, man, fear. Sad to say, this is one that never, ever goes away. You just get better at diagnosing it, talking yourself through it, and having coping strategies. 

See, the thing is, you kind of have multiple brains going on in your skull, and only one of them – the creative voice/your subconscious (kind of) – is actually interested in doing the effort of creating stuff. Your critical voice (largely your conscious mind-thoughts voice) is super, super interested in PREVENTING you from doing creative stuff. Why? Bunch of reasons. It’s scary. People might judge you. The result might be crap. It’s a waste of time. You’re being selfish by indulging in creativity when you could be Contributing To Society instead. You’re not talented enough. You’re Doing It Wrong. Etc etc etc, so on and so forth, in one boring, never-ending tirade designed to Keep You Safe. 

Because creativity, ipso facto, is not Safe. Creativity is wild, and dangerous, and spontaneous, and all the other things that the critical voice has learned to associate with FEAR! DANGER! WARNING! DO NOT ATTEMPT! 

So much fun. 

This is a really, really big topic that’s too much to go into right here, but this is probably you if you start things and can never seem to continue them, if you spend a lot of time staring at a blank page, if most of your thoughts around creativity use the word ‘should’ (I should be writing, I should be doing this faster, I should be better at this, I should, I should, I should)… Tired blocks can cause starting-but-not-finishing and staring-at-a-page too, but those blocks tend to centre around ‘want’ and ‘wish’: I wish I was writing. I wish I could create. I wish I’d done something creative today. 

Another key difference is the idea of ‘productivity’. If your thoughts are product-focused – I should be more productive – that can be an indicator of a fear block, whereas tired blocks *can* be more time focused: I want to spend more time writing, I want more time to write. Though as you can see there, that should/want different still applies. 

Here’s a great series of articles on fear-related blocks. Scroll down for the first one. In happy la-la land where you have money to spend on writing courses, this is a great one on diagnosing fear blocks. In a slightly less la-la but still happy land, this one is also a great course and is less than 10% of the price 😉

All the courses from both those places are amazing, by the way. 

3) Something Is Wrong. 

This one often pops up when you’re writing along in a story just fine, and all of a sudden you slam into a brick wall and can’t progress. Usually means you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere (recently if you’re good at listening to your subconscious, less recently if not) and your subconscious is slamming on the brakes to prevent you from screwing it up irreparably.

The advice in this case is to backtrack to the last place you felt it was flowing well, delete everything from there onwards (or cut and paste into your outtakes file), and go again. Focus not on “what happens next” or on plot, but on “what’s the next sentence.”

Only ever the next sentence. 

This one can also be something Wrong But Not The Story. After not writing in weeks 1 & 2 this term, I was super keen to get back to it in Week 3… and didn’t. Couldn’t. Just n’t.

Took me until the very end of the week when, determined to get SOME words written for the week, I typed out a few quick paragraphs in a gchat to a friend on my phone – and I realised there was nothing wrong with Wording, and everything wrong with Wording On A Computer Screen. My eyes are so fatigued from all the extra screen time the last couple of months that being at a computer screen Feels Like Work, even when it’s not, and so my creative brain isn’t the least bit interested in showing up to plan. I’m planning to try writing pen & paper style this week (even though I usually hate that) and see if that helps some. I’m also planning to learn to write via dictation at some point this year, even though that seems weirdly scary?? 

So there we are: my summary of creative blocks. Susan Dennard, whom I linked to above under “great series of articles”, says it much better than I, so go read her articles too.

And all the best, and happy creating. Remember: if a two-year-old can create things that make them happy, you can too.

<3 A