A Few Creative Tips

Jun 12, 2012 by Laura Greb    No Comments    Posted under: blog

A Few Creative Tips for Getting Over a Creative Slump is by Artmeme Guest Writer James. He is lucky enough to be a stay at home father and part-time freelance writer. He’s currently looking into online degrees in criminal justice and various accredited paralegal programs.

If you are an artist or someone who relies on their imagination and creativity to come up with ideas, then you are probably all too familiar with the creative slump. Writers experience writer’s block, musicians get tired of churning out the same sounding song over and over and others just become depressed at their inability to create. It is a common problem, but the solutions to this problem are sometimes not as common as you might think. There are a million ways to get out of a rut, but many of them do not work for everyone. It is a consistent trial-and-error period, but maybe one of these ideas will help you bust out of that creative slump.

Get surreal with it

Many artists, when they find themselves in a slump, will start trying some experimental techniques. These techniques and experiments may not turn out anything worthwhile, but it can get your brain and creative juices flowing again.

● The exquisite corpse: This is a game in which you take a piece of paper and fold it into three horizontal sections. You will need two other friends to do this. Next you fold over one part of the section, so it is the only one that can be seen by the drawer. This person will then draw the head of a person without anyone else seeing what they are drawing. Then they will fold that section over, so only the middle section is available for the next drawer. The same process goes until each person has drawn the head, torso and legs without seeing what anyone else has drawn. The end product is pure imagination and pure randomness and can spur your creativity.

● The cut-up technique: This technique was created by beat author William S. Burroughs and was used most famously in his novel “the Naked Lunch.” What you do is you take two completely separate pages from a book or sketch pad, cut them up into multiple pieces, mix them up in a hat and then rearrange them in a random order. You may find this act to be liberating and nonsensical, it is about getting in touch with the subconscious, the unknown.

Stop thinking about it

Sometimes, the best thing to do is just to forget that you are in a slump in the first place. Obsessing over something will only make it worse and will put more pressure and stress on yourself to find a solution, when oftentimes the solution is much simpler than it seems.

● Go for a long walk: Many artists have broken their slump by simply walking it out. A nice, long peaceful walk can do wonders for your thinking process. You isolate yourself from any distractions, so you can only focus on what is going on inside your head,

● Turn on the TV: This is the opposite of the tip above, but kind of serves the same purpose. The point is to get yourself outside of your head and to stop worrying about the slump, and just live life. Once this happens, an idea will usually just pop right into your head from seemingly nowhere.

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