Don’t Bother to Be Fully Clothed When Creativity Hits You
By: Anne Bard
Tags: Humor, Writing, Creativity Tips, Writers Block, Creativity

I Hope Inspiration is a Woman

In the French language, the gender of the word is feminine, so it surely is.

I hope it’s a woman because I am not sure I would be at ease to let the door open on my intimacy to a male figure I barely know and who is not a doctor.

Why?

Because the fickle thing doesn’t come when I work on my laptop (err…procrastinate on the Internet) or scribble around on my notebook, waiting for her, she indeed rarely visits me during office hours when I am sitting at my desk.

No, she visits me when I’m naked, relaxing in a warm bath. So I have learned to write with wet fingers.

I am not sure I have heard any authors mentioning this writing technique. Honestly, I couldn’t care less.

It works for me. I keep a towel on a stool beside the bathtub. I have a technique.

Do you want to know how I developed it?

So let’s starts where it all started. Let’s start with this feeling than any writer faces many times in his or her life. Yes, I am speaking about this bad guy: the “writer’s block.”

A Day With The Writer’s Block

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

There are those mornings when I say to myself, well, Anne, that’s the right morning, that’s the right moment, you know you want to write, you know you have itchy fingers. You know you have this itch in your brain and in your stomach too. It doesn’t go away.

No mistake is possible. Today is the day when the words will pour out.

So I am ready, I have my laptop right in the middle of my desk, my tea right on the right side of my computer, my notebook right on the left side. I have surrounded myself with books just for the ambiance; ideas are in my head, I have sketches and scribblings on post-it notes.

I’m ready.

After five good minutes that felt like an eternity, I decide I need to go and check something in the kitchen. I forget what it was, so I brew another tea because I have sipped the previous one during my laborious first five minutes of concentration.

I get back to my room. I stop by my wardrobe. I get changed because my clothes were not comfortable enough, and it’s not suitable for inspiration.

I put the new cup of tea on the left and my notebook on the right. I open a book, then two. Sighs… I look at the window.

One hour passes, then two, I get the message. Inspiration won’t come today, neither will her companions: relaxation, and freedom (All feminine as well).

So I close my laptop, I push away my notebook. I put my professional laptop right in the middle of my desk, and with another deep sigh, I get back to my professional job.

I hope today’s tasks don’t require inspiration either. If they do, then it’s bad luck for me.

It means that I will suffer all day from the vicious torments of another feminine figure: Non-Productivity.

Later I will most probably spend my dinner with her good pal: Unsatisfaction.

Time to Dissolve Negativity in Alcohol and Warm Water

Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

After such a great day, I sit finally with myself and decides its time to take back control of my mood. So would anyone in this miserable situation.

I indulge myself in a warm bath.

It’s a well-known fact, negativity always dissolves itself in warm water, and a dash of alcohol, of course.

But then when I relax with a book, a beer, and a bath, writing comes back to me. For real this time.

I know I have now the full magic combo: writing itch AND inspiration. The words, those bad boys who were nastily playing hide and seek this morning are now just pouring out of my fingers. So I type, I type, and I laugh.

That’s intriguing, wouldn’t you say? But maybe that’s normal.

Perhaps the heat, the steam, and the sweat make the fear and phobias go away. And the writer’s block is smoothly dissolved in the bubble bath.

I guess a bathroom is less conventional and undoubtedly less elegant than an armchair or a tidy desk in the early morning. But who cares?

Of course, I type words on my phone (I always keep it with me for that exact purpose) trying not to drop it in the water. It’s tricky. Have you ever tried to type with sweaty wet fingers? Not straightforward, I can tell.

But I do it anyway. I have a towel to dry my fingers and the screen.

I told you. I have a technique.

The Best is When I Don’t Anticipate it.

I came to this conclusion: it is when I’m not ready that I’m the most productive. Ironically, it’s when I can’t write, physically I mean, that inspiration pours into my mind. I told you she was fickle.

But now I trick her. I know how to.

You should see me getting prepared for a bath. You would either be surprised or most probably laugh.

First, there is the beer that I put on the edge of the bathtub. That’s not the most intriguing part. Then I put one book or two on the stool beside, better if I can have a fiction AND a non-fiction one.

Often I put my laptop on the stool too (it’s a small pinky MacBook air). Yeah, I know, but it’s just in case of Netflix urge.

Then I find some space for my phone, and, of course, a towel.

It looks like a meticulous preparation, even if weird. It’s nothing like that. It’s a preparation not to be prepared. It’s part of the trick.

Once I have arranged all my stuff, I get into the water — one leg, then the other. I slowly sit down. A discrete moan of pleasure and relaxation comes out of my mouth.

I close my eyes. I let my full body spread into the blue liquid. I do nothing else than feeling the warm water all over my skin.

And I turn my head. I look at the stool. I take a sip of the fresh beer. I’m relaxed. I have stopped thinking, and I am well.

Now I stretch my arm to grab one of the books. Which one? It doesn’t matter. I start to read. And this is when it happens.

I mean ideas, words, inspiration, and writing urge. I read only two words, and I’m in. So I grab my phone in one second, I open the notes App, and I write.

But the book-beer-n-bath technique is not the only one to trick inspiration. I have as well the walk-in-the-street-n-podcast after a working day. It works quite well. I need to be ready to stop walking at any time, dig my phone out of my purse, open the notes App. And again, write.

Write no matter what, even if the wind blows, also if the rain pours on me.

My conclusion and advice: don’t wait for this fickle muse, trick her when she believes you are not watching. But don’t forget to change your habits regularly. She is smart. She might learn the trick and fool you again.

It’s When You Don’t Look That You Finally See.

Photo by Michael Rosner-Hyman on Unsplash

It’s a well-known thing. The right brain, the one which allows connecting unrelated things, is accessible when you are relaxed. Anxiety, stress, imposter syndrome are as many padlocks that will keep the door to this precious side of your head tightly sealed.

Bath, books, and beer work for me. But I guess that hiking or biking with a friend or visiting a museum while listening to music are equally valid combos. Relaxation and just enough mind wandering will unlock the padlocks as magically as a goblin would open the Gringotts vault door.

Don’t hate your boredom or distraction or inactivity. It might be scary because you think it keeps you away from your writing objectives. But don’t worry about it.

A process unknown to you is happening in the background, so you don’t need to suffer alone clutched at your desk, go get out, have your mind light and smile. Just keep something to write on within reach: phone, Notepad, anything.

Editing will come after.

Elisabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic, says that creativity is for tricksters not for martyrs, and that’s maybe the answer to every writer’s block.

It’s time to give creativity back to the tricksters. Elisabeth Gilbert — Big Magic.

The only advice is the following, to trap inspiration, know your tricksters. Start with them. There is no shame if it works.

Now enough theory, I think I am going to run a bath.

I want to write.