Writing Tidbits Part II: Getting Unblocked

Blocked

Julia Cameron addresses the lack of motivation through a reverse lens. In her book The Artist’s Way, she explains that motivation lags as a result of a block in the natural flow of creativity. Become unblocked and the flow is restored.

Cameron offers two basic tools as a foundation for the path to becoming unblocked. One is called “Morning Pages,” the gift to yourself of three censorship free pages, which do the heavy lifting of unblocking the writer. The constant harangue of self-censoring is uninvited to the process of creating on the blank page. The result is three liberated pages every morning.

The other tool is “The Artist Date,” the nurturing of our relationship with the creative self. According to Cameron investing time in playful, meaningful and awakening experiences fills the well that we often find empty in our self-neglect. She suggests a weekly outing to a museum or an aquarium or a reflective walk in solitude, a time set aside for just the two of you, you and your artistic self.

These two tools are a rhythmic flow of input and outgo keeping our writer-self healthy and unblocked.

Another component of her book consists of writing exercises that cover a wide array of subjects, many of them encouraging the writer to address specific restraints, both practical and psychological that hold our creativity hostage.

I’ve benefited from Julia Cameron’s book, finding the exercises right on target in dealing with many of the specters that haunt my creativity. I like the “prime the pump” effect of the Morning Pages that helps me move past the sludge level of the digging process and break into some clear water flow.

My ritual morning walk beside the creek, not far from my house, is a palette cleanser for me. It clears space in my head where I prepare to meet my day with greater creative imagination, even the most ordinary things like household chores and mundane tasks. And as for my writing, it enables me to work on chapter problems or brainstorm possible ta-da endings that wrap up a piece I’m working on in just the right way.

And I particularly like her suggestion to have an ongoing Artist Date. These outings not only restore a sense of self that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, but it also works like a sorbet, cleansing the palette for the next course in whatever big project I’m working on. These outings nourish the imagination. Even the simple act people watching can bring renewal when our artist self comes out to play and when we become curious about the smallest and most mundane things.

In her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert confesses the pressure she experienced after the success of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, and how she felt incapable of drumming up any creative passion what so ever. But she did allow herself the childlike playfulness of becoming curious. Giving her curiosity free reign led her to research and her research allowed her to find a story she could nurture into her next book, The Signature of All Things: A Novel.

In 1973 Kenny Logins and Jim Messina released their song “Watching the River Run.” It’s about the twisting and swirling of a river that creates eddies and still pooling waters at its shoreline. It’s a metaphor for the surprising aspects of spontaneity in a loving relationship. Our relationship with our artist self deserves space for this kind of spontaneity.

The Continental Divide running through North and South America marks the beginnings of both continents’ rivers as they journey making their way to the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Unless those rivers are blocked they will flow to the sea, drawn there into a great expansiveness, as if drawn home to where they belong. Their journey to that vast depth and openness is natural and unforced. Those rivers only need free passage. They only need to remain unhindered by anything that might block their flow.

“And it goes on and on, watching the river run…listening and learning and

yearning. Run, river, run.”

Kenny Logins and Jim Messina – From “Watching the River Run”

What do you need to become unblocked in your writing?

Writing Prompt For The Week: Flow