The Lately Feeling

Concerning blocks.

Lately I am not experiencing writer’s block, artist’s block, or any other type of block, even while slogging through depression. I think it’s because I just don’t stop working even if I run out of inspiration.

Inspiration can be found. Ideas can be found. Work goes on. Inspiration can be lost. Ideas can be lost. Work goes on.

On and off, for all my life I’ve had periods of brooding vision. I don’t consider this a blessing or a curse. It’s just how my head works.
I’ll go with chance, for now, but I begin to suspect some sort of pattern. Anyway, yes, some of the render and designs I’ve done have come in flashes of my insanity.

That said, it’s not always like that. Some of them sort of discover themselves as they’re being created. The only way I could block myself is to stop working. Sometimes illness or circumstances stop it for me.

Sometimes, when that happens, it’s not a good thing. Too much stuff gathers in my head.
So, generally, I keep working.

But…

I don’t always feel inspired.

I work anyway. If I don’t have a specific idea that is setting me on fire, I just decide to make something ‘nice’. It has to be noted my definition of nice is a bit more sophisticated that your average teenage girl coming to terms with puberty.

Or it can be an idea on a subject plucked from the collection of notes and hordes of loose paper scattered all over my drawers.

It’s a good idea to keep plenty of paper and pens handy for those inspired moments. A blank notebook can be handy too. You can refer back to it in tough times and keep secret stuff in it too.

When I feel most uninspired, I drag my sorry ass to the computer and I start working and, without fail, I get into it and a twist or play on words or metaphor emerges and grows into an idea. Music doesn’t really help as I get more distracted by it. And coffee. God, I love Mocha.

Sometimes you just have to let go and let give.

Once in a while you have to stop thinking and just see what happens. Not by standing there and staring at the blank page, but by typing something, drawing some lines.

A lot of writers and artists believe that we can train our brains to be ‘on’ by working at the same time every day. That makes sense. Why not? Everything else we learn works that way.

But I believe that the act of working stimulates the creative process and that exercising creativity makes it stronger.