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There are many times when I do not feel like a writer. I do not feel that I hold any power over words, that I can use them to my advantage and amusement, or that of others. If there is paper before me, it is blank; if there is a computer screen, it is filled with useless ramblings and false starts. Drinking a cup of coffee has stirred the desire in me to write all the more, and yet nothing flows from my mind that seems worthy of putting down. I get up, get another glass of water and some junk food; I put on some of my favorite music, and yet I sit prepared to write and nothing pours out from me. In short, I feel like a fraud, a fake, a complete loser. The motivation is there — but the creative soul is fast asleep.

I think that it would be nice if I could just climb one of the giant pine trees in the backyard and find creativity at the top. Or if lightning struck, illuminating the sky, and in that very moment an idea would form that would change my destiny as a writer forever. Or if I could go down to the grocery store and pluck creativity off of the shelf and put it in the shopping cart. Would it be in a can or in a jar? A carton, perhaps? Shrink-wrapped? With the processed meats or in the bakery, wrapped in plastic beside the fresh loaves of bread? I’d like to find it sitting contentedly in a stout, round can between Folgers and Maxwell House in the coffee/cereal aisle. After all, coffee and creativity go together like peanut butter and jelly, like bread and butter.

“As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move … similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.”

— Honoré de Balzac

But, no — that’s silly, isn’t it? Creativity comes from the soul, and soul is certainly something that cannot be purchased at the grocery store, and it certainly isn’t shrink-wrapped or at the tops of trees. And coffee doesn’t make creativity; it just stimulates it.

And so I must think of where else I can grab some creativity and some soul. I’ve already tried the most obvious and well-used strategies: coffee; writing prompts given in various writing books and on helpful websites; and photos and music. Surely creativity should arise from at least one of these things. They have proven useful to me on many occasions! And yet … and yet there is nothing that these things are giving me except the desire to write all the more. Indeed, after I have had my second cup of coffee and listened the entire way through my “favorites” list of music, the desire to write becomes so strong that there is no choice but to write about it and how deeply pathetic it is that my soul yields nothing creative or even meaningful — even if I do call myself a writer.

And as I write on my sad state, I come to realize something. If I am a writer with a creative soul that is lost, or buried, or just dormant, then I must look to other things to stir it up.

1. Other writers — Whom do I admire and why?

David Sedaris for his wit, Michael Shaara for his mastery of character development, C.S. Lewis for his readability and imaginative plots, Pearl Buck for her eye-opening storytelling, and the list goes on. Reading what I enjoy and admire is a good way of and my motivation and creativity in gear. In the same way that I will listen to Prokofiev’s second piano concerto and feel inspired to be the best pianist in the world, so I will read the works of my favorite authors and determine to myself that I will be the world’s greatest writer, even if it is only by writing a short essay or article.

2. Nature — Take a walk.

Before television and the Internet and even the telephone, there was nature, beautiful and grand and colorful, with unpredictable moods that range from thunderstorms to light breezes; from poison ivy to sunflowers. I could take a walk through my neighborhood and notice any number of things: the way that one certain tree in the front yard of the house up the street bends over the sidewalk gracefully, sad but beautiful, its pink blossoms covering the cold white sidewalk. The way the air feels so quiet around me because I’m not listening to any music. The way all of the houses on my street look exactly the same and how they remind me of a Tim Burton movie.

I could walk to the end of my development where there is a small field with a cluster of trees near the sidewalk. I could walk behind the trees and plop down in the tall, scratchy, bug-filled grass and look ahead where there is a great expanse of farmland with a line of trees beyond. I’d pluck a blade of grass and start tearing it apart as I think. Finish it. Start another one. Think. I’ve sat in this spot periodically since I was maybe ten years old. And now I can sit here as a twenty-something and realize how different it looks. Besides the houses that are being built where there was once a cornfield, my outlook on life has changed as well, and that in turn alters what I see in front of me and feel around me. I am now so scared of bugs crawling up my shorts as I sit here that I can hardly appreciate the way the clouds are turning pink as the sun sets. I go home and write about it.

3. The past — What resides there?

Sometimes I sit down to write and realize how boring my life is. Nothing interesting happens to me, my social life is nonexistent, my job is dull, and my cat hates me. I consider taking a nap. There is nothing readily available to grab on to and write about. Things were so much better when I was, I don’t know, fifteen.

Wait. What was that — besides a ridiculous statement? What makes me think life was better at fifteen? Maybe this is something to explore … the past. My past. Good things happened in my past, bad things happened in my past, but the fact is that things happened. So I dig out the old box of photos and find one of me at a younger age, looking quite unfashionable, but smiling all the same. I am standing with some of my classmates, and we all look pretty darn funny. I could try to recall what happened that day or in that year. Life was good at fifteen because …

4. Anger — Everyone is angry about something.

I’d like to think I’m a fairly laid back and open-minded person. I’m chill, I’m cool. I am with it and in control of the situation.

Until I walk into a Wal-Mart.

There is something about Wal-Mart that ignites within me both fear and loathing, and makes me want to get in, grab what I need, buy chocolate as a reward for venturing into the forbidding building in the first place, and rush out as fast as I can, muttering to myself all the while about how much I hate the whole experience. Some people share this sentiment with me, and some shake their heads in confusion and disappointment and ask, “Why?”

Well, I’ll tell them why. I’ll write about it. I’ll write all about how it showcases all of the worst human characteristics possible, how it is nothing but a huge, impersonal warehouse with a black desert parking lot, about how it’s possible to tell someone to meet me in the automotive section in ten minutes, but it takes both of us twenty minutes to walk across the expansive store, dodging irritated parents, lost-looking employees, and screaming children.

This thing I hate is good writing material. A good rant will get me thinking, and I might end up with some valid points that can later be used in an essay or article.

But I do hate Wal-Mart. Just in case you didn’t know.

5. Music — Music tells a story.

It can be any kind of music, especially the kind where I can’t tell what the singer is saying. Is this guy sad? Bitter? Angry? Bitter and angry? Or is the whole song an analogy for a call to world peace?

Even though it is likely that the screaming singer backed by twenty electric guitars is just making a drug reference through his artistry, I can make up my own story. He is bitter, yes. I can make out the words “I’m sorry” over and over again in the song. I’ll bet he’s singing to some chick … yeah, he definitely hurt her. I wonder what he did. The jerk. And I write about it. I give the tortured soul who is singing a past and a story, and I tell it for him. He’s obviously not doing a good job of it himself since I can hardly understand a word he is trying to communicate.

Soundtracks also work well, especially if I have never seen the movie that the soundtrack is from. It is even more effective with foreign films, I have found, as the titles are much more difficult to translate and so offer only vague ideas about what might be going on. The first track might just be some light percussion, and then an accordion comes in kind of cheerful-like, and I picture a girl walking in a city. She probably wears striped socks and an ugly sweater. I wonder where she is going and I try to build a story around the song titles. She is walking to … the park in the center of the city. I don’t know what city it is, but that doesn’t matter yet.

Then track two begins, and it is in a minor key, and I picture her losing her dog. She tries not to panic as she looks around the crowd and sees nothing but unfamiliar faces. And Sparky, he’ll be lost forever, I think. Or maybe he has been kidnapped. And I write about it.

It doesn’t matter if I’ve got the story right or not. The fact is that the soundtrack forces me to fill in the blanks.

I feel a little better now!

And so this is my list of what it takes for me to get creative. Everyone’s list will be different, and that’s okay. Creativity happens to everyone differently. Maybe you are most creative when writing by candlelight, or with the TV on or while listening to bad polka music and eating bananas. Maybe you have never thought about what you do to wake up your creative soul. So if you’re in a slump and think your creative soul is buried or hiding somewhere, go ahead and write about it — and while you are writing, think about what it would take for you to get out of your “writer’s block”. List everything out, no matter how eccentric (like eating pineapples with peanut butter) or not eccentric (like visiting a new café). Find your creative soul!

Mind Sprocket is always interested to find out what our readers and writers do to get their creativity on. In a forthcoming issue, Mind Sprocket would like to publish ideas from our readers on how to find the creative soul. If you’ve got a nugget of wisdom on the creative process that you’ve been aching to share with the world, send us a note at submissions@mindsprocket.com.

Illustration by Lacey Anderson.

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Topics

• Pithy Tales
• Accounts & Glimpses
• Verse
• On Writing