When The {Creative} Block Pays You a Visit, Pull Up a Chair

I think it is only fitting that as I sit here to type out a post on creativity blocks, that I feel, well, kind of blocked myself. How did this happen? Where did it come from? How can I eliminate it?

I know a block has hit when doing mindless menial tasks all of a sudden sounds really entertaining. Wouldn’t it be fun to try and get my email inbox to zero? Wouldn’t it be entertaining to load the dish washer? Wouldn’t it be the perfect time to unpack from our weekend trip?

I can distract myself with any number of activities and convince myself that they all hold great value. Instead I recognize where this is going. I’ve been here before, and I stop myself from rabbit trails that will eat-up my creative time. I only have so many windows of creative alone-time in a day. I need to be sure I use them wisely.

So I make myself sit, every morning, fingers to keyboard, just as a painter sits fingers to paintbrush, a musician sits fingers to guitar strings, a chef sits fingers to measuring spoons, a dancer stands, toes to wood floor, and I let the feelings of The Block race through me. I turn to face them head on, patting them on the head as they pass before me.

“You aren’t going to write as well as the other bloggers writing on this subject,” The Block hisses at me, squinting eyes in a nasty glare, like it’s staring into the sun. I let it speak, but I don’t clamp up at its words. They are just words. They are not truths. “Who are you to speak on creativity?” It continues, still hissing, still glaring. “You do so little these days. When was the last time you painted or played the piano or sewed or drew? You just write things. How boring. How un-colorful. Writers are not creatives. Writers certainly aren’t artists.”

The Block likes to attack at the jugular, but you kind of have to give it space to speak, otherwise you resort to what I spoke of earlier, doing stupid menial tasks to avoid the art that lies before you. So you have to go in prepared, to hear the worst, to hear all the old tapes you thought you’d destroyed. You pat The Block on the head like a little child whom you love desperately, even though they are red-faced, fists pounding the air in an all-out tantrum. You don’t belittle it, you merely sit with it. And then you go a step beyond that. You use it. You put it to work for you. You are creative afterall. You can do this.

I have this incredibly talented musician friend and we were discussing one time what she could do when she was stuck. She goes to write songs and all she can think about is how she doesn’t know what to write about. What should her focus be on? Who is her audience? Where is her heart, her passion and how can that come out in her music? What should her lyrics be saying? How would she be the most effective in her songs? The Block tries to strangle her with an onslaught of questions so that she feels weary before she’s even begun to create. I encouraged her to start with that.

I said to her, “This is me gently reminding you to songwrite the questions when you don’t have the answers.” Sing about the confusion. Write lyrics about the desperate need to have songs translate into healing for someone, but how breathtakingly hard that can be sometimes. Use The Block’s questions for your material. Who wouldn’t relate to a song about wanting to have impact, but not knowing where to begin? That’s a human struggle we all can attest to.

See, The Block likes to convince you that you have nothing to offer. That you have no material. That you are washed up, withered up, inspiration-less. It likes to convince you that you will have to wait for the right magical time. That your mojo is off, The Muse is on vacation and the creative gears are jammed. The Block wants to send you packing, hedging your bets on a better day. Perhaps you should read more books, buy better art supplies, re-do your studio, go on vacation, sit in nature, watch a movie, check twitter,  meditate or schedule coffee with an inspiring friend.

Don’t get me wrong, all good things. Many of them will breathe creative life into you at one time or another. HOWEVER, they do not address the lie that The Block is whispering in your ear. The one that says, “You are not creative right now. You will have to wait for a better time.”

If that is the case then why have I written an entire blog post on the topic of creative blocks, when I was sure I had nothing to offer? At some point, in the midst of our creative processes, The Block gets worn out by all the fist-pounding, and lies motionless until the clickity, clack, click of my keyboard (or the swooshes of paintbrush or the plucking of strings) lulls it to sleep. Like a toddler, it just needed a chance to get it all out and once that happened, the fight became too exhausting and the will to disrupt was thwarted. You look at The Block when it’s sleeping and you can’t help but kind of feel sorry for it. “You poor thing. You get so worked up. Rest now. Your job is done.”

There is art inside of you. There is creativity that brews. There is a longing to express yourself, to be fully known, to speak your mind artfully. There is a desire to release impact and influence creatively into the world. The problem is, the longer you wait, the more control you give away to The Block. It becomes this unchecked toddler, given free reign to your life.

You become a little intimidated of what The Block is capable of. You become a little convinced that maybe you can’t stand up to the bully. You become a bit worried that The Block has keys to your closets that hide skeletons you don’t want others to know about. Afterall, you’re not invincible. You have doubts. You have fears. You have jealously towards other more successful artists. And The Block knows these things and is not afraid to blackmail you with them. All the while you really just want to paint or to sing or to write or to draw or to decorate your home or to make your own recipes or to dance your own steps. And you become jaded and you think life has done you wrong.

The Block is a perfectionist and every time you don’t create (when you want to) it is turning you into one as well. You think the end result must be beautiful, flawless, perfect. The Block has this expectation of how your art must appear for it to be deemed art at all, and if it can convince you that expectation is right AND that you are certainly not capable of it, then you will remain a creative wanna-be, a slave to the infantile Block who has whined enough times in order to get its own way.

But real artists? Real artists know that things are far more messy than The Block likes to allow. Real artists know that the things The Block likes to convince you to keep hidden in dark closets (our fears and doubts and insecurities) are actually fodder for brilliant, raw, compelling creations. Real artists know that The Block is just The Ego, gallivanting in creative terminology and The Ego never wants to risk embarrassment, mistakes or straying from the status quo. Real artists know that the valor is not in the playing it safe by never starting or in the glamor-gloss of churned out plastic-coated, carbon-copy creations, but rather in the mess of the wrestling, where the questions cannot paralyze but only ignite true creativity.

The Block is your friend. It visits when you are in a creative slump and it gives you all the inspiration you need. But you have to let it rant. And you have to be brave enough to hear it out, to pull up a chair and sit with it. And you have to lean into its message and make something of it. When The Block tells you no and you create anyway, you’ll find a sort of calmness, an inner fortitude that you didn’t know you had and that calmness will prove beneficial in future encounters with The Block, because believe me, it will always return. Only next time, next time you’ll be ready.

*Today I am taking part in a synchro-blog covering the topic of creative blocks. Below is the list of participants collaborating on this theme. Join the discussion on Twitter using the hash tag #creativeblocks.

Be sure to click the “Read More About Contributors Here” graphic.

Bryan Allain- Creative Blocks In Blogging

Pete Wilson-Blocked Vs Empty

Rachel Held Evans-Writers Block

Keith Jennings-Suffering Creative Block?

Matthew Paul Turner-A Letter To Christianity From Creativity

Stephen Brewster-Creative Block In Church Creativity

Sarah Cunningham-Dreaming Blocks

Jeff Goins-Why Creative Blocks Aren’t Always Bad

Kyle Reed-Creative Blocks 20 Somethings

Carlos Whittaker-Creative Block In Music

Tagged as: art, artist, block, creative, creative block, creativity, procrastination, resistance, writer's block