Writing Advice:

Spark Your Creativity

What is creativity? We define it as the human impulse to make pattern and shape out of the massive amount of information in the world.

Everyone is creative. It’s your birthright as a human being. You’re creative when you look at something and choose foreground and background. You’re creative when you organize your dishes in the cupboards. You’re creative when you decide what to wear, even if it’s all black. You’re creative when you design your bathroom, even if it’s all white.

But sometimes you hit a creative block. You don’t feel creative. You feel dull and burned out. Why does that happen, and what can you do to spark your creativity again?

Why do creative blocks happen?

Creative blocks happen when you start to focus on the result rather than the process. Your rational mind takes control, and it’s thinking thoughts that have nothing to do with creativity. It’s thinking: Am I good enough? Is this going to work? Is anyone going to like this? Are people going to make fun of me? Am I wasting my time? Should I be doing something else? What about the laundry and the dirty dishes?

Anxieties and judgments block creativity. When your thoughts are ruled by hopes and fears, you’re not in the present; you’re in the past and the future. You can’t get into the flow of the present moment.

Your rational mind likes to judge. It wants things to be correct, to be in order. It doesn’t like change, because it doesn’t like what it doesn’t know. But creativity is all about change, new orderings, new connections. That’s why we titled our book and self-paced online course—10 sessions that cover all aspects of writing, and teach you how to write with creative energy and flow—Write What You Don’t Know.

Overcoming creative blocks

The Imaginative Storm method was designed to overcome creative blocks. We call it a dance between the rational mind and the imagination—with the imagination the partner that leads the dance.

You may have heard that common piece of writing advice, “Get out of your rational mind.” Is that really possible, for a rational creature? So we say, let your rational mind follow rather than lead. Don’t tell it that it’s useless or unwanted; give it a task. And that task is, for the next 10 minutes, to let your imagination be as free as possible.

The 10-minute timer is one of the most useful tools for overcoming creative blocks. Why? Because your rational mind isn’t expecting to write anything good in 10 minutes—and even if, over time as you work in the Imaginative Storm method, it has learned that you can write terrific material in 10 minutes, it has also learned not to expect that every time. So, if in this upcoming 10 minutes you don’t get something terrific, big deal.

You’re focusing on the present: this material, these 10 minutes. You’re not thinking about the larger project or your life purpose and talent, and getting all anxious and judgmental. You’ll surprise yourself, even amaze yourself, with the creative originality of what you put on the page.

Use writing prompts for creative thinking

Imaginative Storm offers a huge variety of writing prompts to get your creativity flowing. Anything that intrigues your imagination will serve. Then, all you have to do is invite your imagination to pop out something that you aren’t trying to “think up.”

Thinking creatively sparks new insights and new ideas. You broaden your range of compassion and awareness. You gain understanding of yourself and others. You see new solutions and ways to do things. You energize and motivate yourself to bring your creative ideas into reality.

Paperback of Write What You Don't Know