Stuck On Your Writing/Art/Whatever Project? Take ONE Day and Try This
Creative artists get involved in their work. They take it seriously. They have invested much time in the creation of things–objects which others can then use.
They communicate, unless they’re just masturbating. Of course I don’t mean every single work is for public consumption, I’m speaking in general. You know that, so let’s not waste time with one of the curses of our time, pointless literalness.
You’re deeply involved in a piece, and you come to a roadblock. You’ve tried to get around it, but can’t.
You could take time off and recharge, for a day, a week, a month…or an hour. There are many ways to work through such a problem.
Here’s one I’ve found works to break the logjam: Take a day off from your main project and work exclusively on something else.
You can’t set up this work of Vacation Art beforehand. You just decide “Friday is the day I don’t work on Project A, I work on Something Else.” Don’t put together material, don’t make lists of character names, don’t even choose a genre.
Wait until The Day arrives, sit down, and just start working on something new.
Let’s say you’re writing a contemporary novel, and you’ve tried my favorite block breaker, The Gene Wolfe Method. But you’re still bogged down. On Friday, you sit down with a fresh yellow pad and pen, and you start writing about whatever has been on your mind a lot lately. Not what you think you SHOULD be thinking about, what you HAVE thought about–politics, your wife, that awesome movie you saw that keeps bobbing into your consciousness (I’m surprised by how much I liked TAR), that writer you envy, pizza (I’m always thinking about that, so…)
Spend Friday writing about something having nothing to do with Project A. If THAT bogs down, try another scene in the same mode. Once you start on something new–entirely new–hang with it until the next day.
I am not sure why this works for me, but it does. I believe it tricks my unconscious hangups into thinking I’ve abandoned Project A, so my unconscious goes to work on the Friday Project…and Project A is free to escape.
I go back to work the next day on Project A. In most cases, this breaks up the issues. You might give this a shot, though I don’t give writing advice, remember?
