How to Break Through the Creative Block
Whether you love drawing, coloring, writing, choreography, or playing music, you’re probably familiar with the creative block where you just can’t do anything despite your motivation. To avoid this rut, try to do what you do best, just awful.
I attended the Los Angeles Times Book Festival last weekend and saw some instructive panels. One of these was on a panel of graphic novels called ” Working Doubled Hard “, which featured graphic novelist MariNaomi , Pamela Ribon and Tilly Walden . Eventually, the conversation turned into a creative rut when the host, Tracy Brown of the Los Angeles Times, asked about their productivity.
Each member of the group wanted to say something interesting, but Walden immediately picked up some useful advice, which I really liked. She said that when she felt stuck, she deliberately tried to draw something as bad as she could (among other examples, she mentioned drawing Bart Simpson with her non-dominant hand). This action alone would do two things for her: it would force her to get to work without pressure, it would ease her flow, and would often motivate her to prove that she could do it better.
I’m not a very good illustrator, but I tried the same tactic with the script I’m writing. I was stuck on stage for a few days, so I decided to write the scene in the most ill-conceived way possible – and it helped! What I wrote was ridiculously bad and I knew I could do a lot better, which helped me get on with my work without freezing. I wasn’t worried about it not being good enough because I knew it was better than the worst thing I could do. So, whatever you create – be it fine art, music, dance, storytelling, etc. – try to do it horribly when you feel stuck. Instead of comparing your work to the work of others, you only need to worry about becoming better than you were before. Anyway, self-improvement is all you need, right?