Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A Remedy for Writer's Block

A few weeks ago, writer's block flared up. I just couldn't find the core from which I needed to write an emotionally charged scene. So I procrastinated. And then I procrastinated a little more.

Then a woman hired me to make some flower arrangements for her. As with my cakes, when I work with flowers, I throw all of my creative energy into it. That got my imagination flowing again, and the words that had evaded me for weeks presented themselves in abundance. Of course, they came in the middle of a project that had a looming deadline, so I could only make quick notes from which to draw later. Surprisingly, that limitation also fed the creativity. Since I couldn't take the time to put the words into type, there was a great deal of room for my mind to further twist and turn and play with the edits.

Long story short, if you have writer's block, pick up something completely unrelated. Finish a scrapbooking or photography project. Paint a room. Finish piecing together a quilt. So something else creative, something that will occupy one part of the mind so the imagination can get moving again. Soon the words will come.

At least, they did for me.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent advice! Just letting your brain be creative, regardless of the craft, often does the trick.

    On the flip side, writer's block helps with the problem of a dirty house. It works something like this . . . oh, I'm stuck. I can't write this paragraph. Hey, I see some dust, some dirty laundry, and a grocery list.

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  2. Good advice, again. My issue, lately, is not that I'm blocked...I've got so much else going on that I'm not making time for writing. But wait...my blog count, right? ;)

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