OCT 11th 1-2-3: Combat Creative Block And Open Your Mind With A 5 Minute Walk
1: How A Walk Can Kill A Block ( 2 minute read )
In my years of creating, whether it be working on my music or my writing, a place I frequently find myself is one that is bereft of any creativity.
One moment I feel like I am bursting with creativity and seemingly out of nowhere it all runs dry.
I am left with an unfinished page, a few minutes of wasted time, and a slight headache.
I will end the day and assume it will all be gone by tomorrow.
Then tomorrow begins and I am still stuck. When I decide to put my nose to the grindstone nothing worth the standard I set for myself reveals itself.
This is Creative Block, a thing that will happen to anyone who decides to follow this path as an Artist, and it will happen in any art form you fancy.
It is a natural part of the Creative Process and can be utterly debilitating if you let it get to you.
Though there are plenty of ways to deal with Creative Block, in this entry I will offer you only one tool you can add into your toolbox for defeating Creative Block.
I have many times found myself deep within a piece of art I am working on and suddenly I am faced with a brick wall that blocks all creativity from me.
One approach I have found to simply walk around that brick wall, is to do just that. Go for a walk.
It doesn’t even have to be a long walk, just a short 5 minute minimum walk outside.
Get some fresh air, release some pent up energy out and suddenly the cogs within your mind begin turning again.
Your stream of thought begins to flow, and ideas chock full of creativity begin to come down the stream, ripe for the picking.
When I first experienced this, I was driven to do so purely out of frustration and desperation.
After experiencing the benefits of this multiple times, I simply thought I had found something that worked for me and my process specifically.
Over an extended period of time my brother would begin to notice something and would end up pointing it out to me.
We would be watching a video on self help, researching some of our favorite artists and their approach, or even watching some video on an area of science that we found particularly interesting and he begun to see a pattern.
The pattern was, within all of these separate areas there were very prolific figures who found that simply going for a walk was a thing that would free their minds when they were hitting a block of sorts.
Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Cal Newport, Haruki Murakami, Orson Scott Card and even Benjamin Franklin to name a few, were all known for speaking on the effects a walk has on the mind during mental blocks.
Once he noticed this pattern we both began to look at the act of, going for a walk with much more reverence.
It is something we both find as an integral tool within our Creative Process, one that has helped us through many of Creative Blocks, and one that we will always use.
The key with this tool is to NOT stop working on your art, instead just simply take a short break and go for a walk to get your creative streams flowing, then re-approach your works.
I now pass this tool on to you.
Now go for a walk, and create art!
2: Creative Prompts From Us (ex. Write a short story, a poem, a song, or draw a quick illustration of these! Let your imagination run free.)
I. A circus that appears only at midnight. Why are they only out at midnight?
II. A mirror that shows the true self of any who dare gaze into it.
3: Inspirational Quotes From Others
I. “The most important qualities to be a fiction writer are probably imaginative ability, intelligence, and focus. But in order to maintain these qualities in a high and constant level, you must never neglect to keep up your physical strength.
-Haruki Murakami
II. “It’s worth the time to take an hour’s walk before writing. You may write a bit less for the time spent, but you may find that you write better.”
-Orson Scott Card
III. “The goal of productive meditation is to take a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally — walking, jogging, driving, showering — and focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem.”
-Cal Newport