No artist tolerates reality
Nietzche
I’ve known the topic of this letter since the day after I posted the previous, but ironically it’s taken me four weeks to sit down and write it. And what’s worse, is I’m not entirely sure what to say now I’m here.
So let’s start at the beginning. If you have spent time with any creative person, or are yourself a creative bod, you’ll have experienced the following conversation:
Person A: I’m really frustrated
Person B: Why?
Person A: Because my [insert art medium] is stuck. I’m blocked. The painting/words/music/ etcetera just aren’t coming.
Person B: Oh no, why’s that do you think?
Person A: No idea, but it’s doing my head in and I’m really frustrated with myself. I just can’t do it.
[end scene]
(Script writing is not on the cards for my future.)
We all have been or known a Person A. Creativity isn’t a constant source of inspiration. It ebbs and flows in peaks and troughs: a deluge of ideas in an arid desert during the rainy season. But what Person A does not detail is how they’re ignoring the veritable tire fire of their life that’s burning merrily behind them. Because nothing blocks the flow of creativity like Life (with a big fuck off capital L for all its annoyances).
Life has a habit of getting in the way of things that we want to do. The bills creep a bit too high, the family asks a bit too much of you, your health takes a nosedive, your day job rudely requires you to meet your deadlines. The delicate balance of balls that you juggle on a day-to-day basis gets too chaotic, and suddenly you have to give it your entire focus. You can’t drop a ball after all. So the part of your mind that is usually tinkering away in the background on creativity, gets appropriated to process whatever shenanigans Life is throwing at you.
But you’re still you. You still want to write, draw, sing, dance – whatever it is that is your outlet. The desire is there, festering, building with no release, an echo chamber of growing frustration because you can’t drop a ball.
You can’t drop a ball.
So what’s the solution? I’m asking you, as Person A, what’s the solution? Because I’ve looked, and as far as I can see, there isn’t a magic wand that will make all my troubles go away – god, I wish there was.
I’ve mentioned before, but these last twelve months have not been kind. My health took a running jump and swan-dived off Niagara Falls. Everyone has their cross to bear. A crisis of mortality is enough to set a fire under anyone’s arse to re-evaluate and reprioritise how they spend their time – hence the beginning of this endeavour to get my story written and published. But through all that, there are good days and there are bad, and all the while my story is ticking away in the back of my mind, waiting for me to have the will to sit down and put the words to page. It’s a special kind of frustration, a bone-deep exhaustion seasoned with a pinch of over-caffeinated anxiety.
And it’s not just me. As I said, if you know a creative person, you’ve inevitably had this conversation with them because Life™ happens to us all.
Through my authority of experience (and with only a smidge of audacity), the only solution I can offer is the complete opposite of a magic wand. Frustration and anger at the creativity block, only seeks to muddy the water further, and trying to force yourself to work in this mindframe is akin to trying to squeeze the last drop of water from a wrung out cloth. One hundred per cent of your mental faculty is focused on keeping those balls in the air – there’s nothing left to create inspiration. So frustration and anger at yourself makes any hope of creativity impossible.
But some artsy folk create masterpieces in times of strife, you say. And yes, I hear you and you’re totally correct. Some people find calm in the eye of the storm through channelling their turbulent emotions into their medium. The key point however, remains the same: creativity is intrinsically linked to processing emotion.
For any aspiring writer / creative, looking to successful authors for ‘how to’ advice is part of the course, and one of the most common questions I have seen is, ‘how do you do it?’. Writing is hard, and keeping momentum during a long project is a different type of challenge. Writing is a marathon – not a sprint. It’s a craft that is honed and perfected through experience. It’s also entirely subjective. Rules are made to be broken. And if there’s anything I have learned through listening to authors that I admire and look-up to, it’s that there is no magic wand or one-way to do things.
That being said, a common piece of advice that I’ve seen floating around of the writer spaces on social media is, “set yourself a minimum word count per day”. The idea being, no matter the situation, no matter the quality, you are meeting that 500 word target per day, for example. And yes, this will inevitably get your book written, just through sheer logic alone: if you put words on a page, something will be created.
But when you have that aforementioned block because you’re toasting marshmallows on the inferno of your Life™, sitting down to meet the minimum requirement can feel like rubbing sandpaper through your thoughts. Forcing your mind to work in a way that it doesn’t want to – that it can’t – will not produce results that you are happy with. It will not inspire you to create more. It only adds gasoline to the fire adding more frustration, self doubt, and self criticism.
At this point, I’m wondering if I should change this series into ‘be kind to yourself post-of-the-day’, because once again, that’s what this comes down to. There isn’t a magic wand that lifts the block with a flick of the wrist. All there is, is you. The very capable, very creative, brilliant you. You, who is still juggling those balls. Whatever it is in your Life™ that is causing the block will pass if you allow it to, your only priority is doing whatever you need to do to make sure you’re still standing on the other side.
Ignore your art if you have to. Scream the words at the page like slashing paint across a canvas if it’ll make you feel better. Blast music through your headphones and vividly imagine the next scene if it’ll help. Don’t force yourself to work when you can’t, and do your best to let the guilt go when it rears its unhelpfully ugly head. There’s no one right way to cope with a block, but there is a way that suits you to ride the wave of Life™.
At least, this is what I keep telling myself.
Here’s some things I have been doing to help me through whilst I’m toasting s’mores of the fire of my Life™:
- Self care – Always top of the list and by far the most important. Your body and soul need care and nourishment. It will put out what you put in. If you only feed yourself negative energy through self-criticism, it’ll only produce negativity in turn. So have a glass of wine, a bite of chocolate, do the face mask you’ve been putting off because ‘you have no time’. Put yourself back together piece by piece, it doesn’t have to be anything drastic overnight. Beg off social engagements for a quiet night in and recharge your social battery, or in turn, go out and surround yourself with loved ones. Whatever it is you need in this moment, is the priority. And categorically ignore the voice in your mind that questions whether or not ‘it’s essential’ or whether it would be more productive to do something else. Nothing is more important than you.
- Go back to the beginning – I have found that with long term creative projects, the exhaustion of the marathon is enough to drain the last of your motivation. For me, there’s.always a nagging sense of guilt that I should be doing something to do with my manuscript, or with a painting I’ve been working on for the last twelve months. And this guilt and sense of obligation totally wipes out the enjoyment I got from doing these things in the first place. So I’ve gone back to the beginning. I side-stepped painting and have began to teach myself origami, and I paused my main manuscript to focus on a short-story. They’re fun, inconsequential without the pressure of my overarching goals, and in little ways, are reminding me why I love to create. Creating for creation’s sake. Finishing the short story was a balm, a small hit of dopamine that comes with completing something that I hadn’t felt for such a long time. So go back to the beginning, learn something new, give yourself a break from the pressure you’re putting on yourself.
- Healthy living – I know, I know. I’m not going to start preaching salads and green tea, because the last thing you need in burnout is to restrict yourself from things that make you happy, and give your system a whole new bout of stress to deal with. The goal of healthy living is balance, not deprivation. So instead, I’m going to say if you’re a coffee drinker, try and limit your caffeine intake. Start by not having that one cup later in the evening (nothing drastic). If you’re an alcohol drinker, again limit that last glass. If you’re a raccoon like me, try and aim for an hour more sleep than you’re currently getting. The goal is 7+ hours but hard to achieve if you’ve got a bout of insomnia to boot. So start gently, just an hour more than you’re getting now, and increase steadily as needed.
And try and eat a salad.
- Fall in love with world again – These creative ventures are as social as you make them, but with writing, that is only true to a point. You’re so much in your own head or locked into your laptop that it’s counter-intuitive to try and be social when you’re trying to meet your word count. But one of the best cures for creative burnout is enjoying other people’s art. I recently took an impromptu trip to Barcelona and spent then entire week traipsing around galleries and drinking sangria. Not once did I worry that I wasn’t doing enough on my manuscript. In fact, I came back excited to sit at my laptop to capture a few ideas I’d had out there. So whether it be reading a good book in a cosy cafe, or getting lost in art in a small tucked away gallery, or even going for a walk in an ancient woods with trees towering above you, with only the wind keeping you company – go and fall in love with the world again. Get out of your head, out of the prison you locked yourself in and live.
Finally, and most importantly, be patient. The muse will not return if you force it. Use the light from the burning fire of your Life™ to get yourself back to baseline.
Remember: everything will be ok.
Podcast of the Week
All of this is to say we all experience the beginning signs of burnout, the key is to listen to your body and ease of the gas, before things go too far. Burnout is no small matter and should always be taken seriously. The stress of the last few years is really creeping up on all of us these days. Here’s a good listen to hear how some of the most successful authors of today deal with burnout:
Feel the Burn: Writing Excuses
And for further reading on getting yourself out of creative burnout, this blog is brilliant: Artwork Archive
Regan Atlas 
One response to “Blood from a Stone – 29th June 2023”
Nice post and really sound advice. When I was writing my memoir, I had to put the writing aside after the difficult passages to give my soul a rest. That was different than getting organized and putting in the time for “500 words a day.” In those moments, I kept going for my SIL, a brain cancer survivor. He has an MRI every 6 months, going on 8 years now. So far “no active cancer,” the best he can hope for. After each clean MRI, he makes remarkable posts about gratitude and doing the things you want to do now. Follow him on IG @bigWin_20.
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