7 Wordsmith Shenanigans to Elevate Your Creativity
By: Tilted Writer Musings
Tags: Novel Writing, Writing Life, Writers On Writing, Writers On Medium, Fiction

We’re in the same boat, guys. There are days when the cursor just stares at us like the little jerk it is… reminding us with each blink that the page is woefully empty. On those days, sentences form about as fast as a turtle sprinting through peanut butter.

This is never how we plan our days. The plan is to sit down and effortlessly string together word combinations that profoundly affect readers…word combinations the likes of which the world has never experienced.

Welp, wake-up call. Those days are rare.

The Musing of the Muse

What can we do when the sentences simply aren’t coming together? No words are wording. No muses are musing. The cursors just sit and curse. And we curse right along with them.

Then what? We take a break.

Hold on, Slugger! It’s easy to see the word ‘break’ and react like a kid waking up to a snow day, but this is a different kind of break. When you give yourself a break from the project you’re working on, make sure it’s constructive, helpful, and actually has a chance in hell of firing you up. Also, give yourself a time limit. You’re not running away to join a barefoot creative commune in the desert (not just yet); you’re giving yourself a quick creative boost.

In the meantime, here are 7 artsy antics that will help shake things up and get you back to slinking ink onto the page:

1. Write a limerick. Or a soliloquy. Or a sad country song about a romance gone wrong. Warning: if you write the song, you must be prepared to sing, because it’s 2020 and we all need the entertainment. Push yourself to try something new. Currently jammed up on a historical romance plotline that includes a time-traveling zombie protagonist? (Can’t blame you there.) Definitely take a break from that. For the love of donuts, write a nursery rhyme or a lighthearted rap to clear your head.

2. Change the scenery. Do you work in your home office every day? If so, you are a god among writers with a sense of discipline we should all work toward. (I may or may not be in a recliner eating pizza. My muse likes pizza.) If you’re in an office every day, plan breaks so your imagination can breathe and soak up new ideas. I love Dover White #6385 as much as the next guy, but after a while those office walls can feel restrictive to a creative. Try taking your work outside. Sit in a garden. Write in the middle of the woods. I once saw a guy writing at an island-style bar in the middle of a pool, which was a very bold move. I’m guessing he’s into suspense, and maybe a little walk on the wild side was just what he needed to fire up his creativity.

Disclaimer: Tilted Writer in no way recommends taking your laptop to the pool bar. We do, however, recommend going to the pool bar.

3. Draw a picture of your main character. Or draw a self-portrait. I don’t care. Draw something. You spend every day, all day, writing words. We all write until letter soup appears on the screen, and this is exactly why we sometimes get stuck or write ourselves into corners. Challenge your brain to pick up a sketch pad or a canvas to jolt your brain back into creative mode.

4. Bake a cake. Not only will your house smell delicious, it will give you the perfect amount of time away from your desk. And cooking, baking, measuring…all those culinary skills? They are a great way to make your brain force its logical, mathy side to play nicely with its artsy, creative side. You’ll be spinning tales in no time, and chances are, you’ll be counting down for the oven timer to go off so you can get back to the keyboard.

5. Eavesdrop. This is arguably one of the easiest — and most effective — pastimes for writers. You can hang out just about anywhere and observe behavior and conversations that leave you with more questions than answers. Know why that’s perfect? Because we then have to tap into our wellspring of creative genius to fill in gaps in the story. Boom! Imagination re-energized. Pro Tip: This is also a fun and fabulous way to get first lines that pick up in the middle of the action.

6. Go Old-School. Write a letter instead of typing an email. Challenge yourself to send hand-written greeting cards for birthdays for an entire year. If you usually work on a laptop, grab ye olde pen and paper. Dust off your journal or create a daily gratitude list. I know, our hand muscles are a bit atrophied from days of softly tapping at silent keyboards, so ease into this endeavor gently. Create small habits that you’ll keep up. After all, science has proven that writing by hand sharpens both creative and cognitive performance — an excellent reason to write your mom a letter.

7. Go to a rage room Still stuck? It’s time to bring in the big guns. If you’re not a Groupon junkie, you may not have run across this little gem. You can pay to go into a room loaded with enough baubles and knickknacks to make Great Aunt Hazel apoplectic with nerves. Inside, they give you bats and crowbars and mallets, oh my! You and your safely-channeled feelings are unleashed upon the breakables for a chance to break everything in sight. It gets your blood pumping, your heart pounding, and even helps lower anxiety. (We’re writers. We’re NOT anxious. Deadline? What deadline? We’re. NOT. ANXIOUS!) Yeah, just try the rage room. A good workout always gets the wheels turning.

The Secret Sauce

There’s something you need in order to make every project successful. If you don’t learn it now, it will eventually — maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually — take a chomp out of your overworked creative butt.

We all need BALANCE.

No matter what kind of word magician you are, you need breaks and inspiration and creative stimulation. But we struggle with allowing ourselves these much-needed things because we are a determined and tenacious breed. Once we decide to do the thing, the project, the novel, we will lock ourselves away and throw away the key until we produce what we expect of ourselves.

But balance doesn’t work like that.

Balance is about give and take. It’s about being good to yourself and giving yourself what you need to succeed. It’s hard to accept, but sometimes taking a little breather helps you get back into the game…with more creativity than ever.

If you’re at rock bottom on creativity, go pet a goat, walk around a lake, feed a duck. Then hit the keyboard with the creativity and clarity you need to meet your goals.