“Literary master class” by writer and screenwriter Jürgen Wolf; in it famous writers talk about the techniques that helped them overcome their creative crisis.

Literary Masterclass: Learn from Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dickens, Hemingway and many other modern and classic authors

Jurgen Wolf

Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014

Why you shouldn't be afraid of creative crisis

“The wisest thing to do is not to worry too much about periods of creative infertility. They help the theme mature and bring the reality of everyday life into the story.”

Shelley Jackson suggests that creative dead ends are quite normal part process of creating a work:

“I sat on the unfinished draft for several years until I suspected, and rightly so, that I simply did not know how to finish it. When I returned to it again, I still didn’t know this, but I continued and eventually finished the book. If someone had immediately told me that I would never understand how to write novels, I would have immediately continued, despite almost complete confusion and doubts, and after finishing the draft, I would have appreciated what I had written and began to improve the book.”

Roddy Doyle- another novelist with a rather carefree approach to work:

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a writer’s block. If a novel is moving slowly or is extremely unsatisfactory, I switch to another book so I can return to the problem area later. I calmly write nonsense with the full understanding that this is nonsense and I will correct everything later. Often you have to write six bad sentences before you get to a good seventh. But first you need to write these six, understand that they are bad, and guess that the seventh is what you need. So even bad days are useful.”

Temporary creative impasse accompanied the work Alice Munro over all her books:

“There were times when I was writing and thought that I had made great progress - I had written more pages than usual. The next day I get up and realize I don't want to work on this thing anymore. When I am so reluctant to continue that I have to force myself, I usually know that something is going wrong. About three-quarters of the time, I felt the urge to quit the story quite early on. I spend a day or two severely depressed, wandering around aimlessly, wondering if I should write something else. Everything is as in love story: Frustrated and unhappy, you start dating a new guy who you don't like at all, but you haven't realized this yet. Then suddenly it appears new idea the story left was: I need to see if she will fit, but only after I tell myself: “No, everything is bad here, forget about it.”

Similar doubts about their own stories also existed among Chekhov. He compared them with those not yet written:

“I have plots for five stories and two novels languishing in my head. One of the novels has been planned for a long time, so some of characters already outdated before they were written. In my head I have a whole army of people asking to come out and waiting for a command. Everything that I have written so far is nonsense in comparison with what I would like to write and what I would write with delight... I don’t like that I am successful; those stories that sit in your head are annoyingly jealous of what has already been written; It’s a shame that the nonsense has already been done, and the good stuff is lying around in the warehouse, like book trash.”

Writers have several options for practically addressing these issues.

Move to more
major issues

Paul Auster believes that writer's block may be a sign that there are larger issues to consider:

“The greatest patience is needed. After many weeks of sadness and months of suffering, I discovered that when a writer reaches a dead end, it usually means that he does not understand what he really wants to say. You need to go back and carefully consider your motives, intentions and goals that you intend to achieve. But the main thing is not to force yourself to write further just to fill the last pages with words.”

Brainstorming topics

If the difficulty is that you have no idea for next book, try the method you used Philip Roth. He told NPR how he came up with the plot of the novel Nemesis about the polio epidemic:

“I started [writing] as I often do: [writing down] everything in a yellow notepad on lined paper. historical events, which I witnessed and which I have not yet reflected in my books. When I got to polio, it was a revelation to me. I never thought that this could be the topic of a book. Then I remembered how terrible it was, how deadly it was, and I thought, “Okay, try writing a book about polio...” I wanted to see: Can I portray how afraid we all were of it?

Roth used the same method for the book “The Plot Against America,” where he tried to imagine what would have happened if Charles Lindbergh, rather than Franklin Roosevelt, had won the presidential election in 1940.

Write only if you believe

Ray Bradbury said:

“Those who get stuck are simply doing something they shouldn't be doing: those who write screenplays or books that shouldn't have been written will end up with writer's block because their subconscious will say:

“No more inspiration!”

His opinion is typical for a writer high level: if you write about what you love, creative crisis will not occur.

Get treatment

Having experienced problems in the middle of working on the script for the film Carter Conquers the Devil, Glen David Gold took a break for seventeen months to consider whether screenwriting was a symptom of struggling with unhealed childhood trauma. He says:

“I decided to go to therapy, change my life, move on to another stage and come back. And then I decided that I needed to surprise myself. I was walking between the stacks in the library and decided that I would place on the stage an object from the first book that I came across. And this turned out to be the story of the guillotine! This was able to surprise me, motivate me to move from exposition to action and complete the rest of the plot.”

Keep a diary

Dominic Dunn advises:

“I think keeping a diary is the best thing for a writer... A journal will be especially invaluable when you are experiencing a creative impasse. Write down complaints to yourself about creative crisis there. Tell me how bad you feel, how angry you are that your talent suddenly left you. Describe a chapter or scene where you are at a dead end: who are these characters and what do you want to achieve in this episode. Write about it. Believe me, everything will start to get better right there, in the diary.”

Give a surprise

H.G. Wells advised:

"If you're having trouble with a book, try the element of surprise: attack her when she least expects it."

I agreed with him Francis Scott Fitzgerald:

“Sometimes you can solve a particularly difficult problem if you approach it from the very beginning. early morning, with the freshest powers of consciousness. I have had this happen so often that I have blind faith in this approach.”

Listen to music

Amy Tan speaks:

“There are many ways. One of them is to put on the same music that I listened to when I was working on it before. Music has a hypnotic effect and mobilizes all senses. And I immerse myself in the right atmosphere.”

Write one
this offer

Ernest Hemingway This is how I built my self-confidence:

"Sometimes, starting new story, I couldn’t move, and then I sat down in front of the fireplace, squeezed tangerine peels into the fire and watched the splashes flare up with blue sparks. I got up, looked at the Parisian rooftops and thought: “Don’t worry. You could write before and now you will write. You just need to write one truthful phrase. Write the most truthful one you can.” In the end, I wrote down one truthful phrase and moved on from there. And it was already easy, because there was always one truthful phrase that you knew or saw, or heard from someone. If I began to write intricately, or to lead to something, or to demonstrate something, it turned out that these curlicues or decorations could be cut off and thrown away and start with the first true, simple affirmative sentence.

Creative crisis visits every person, no matter what they do. There is nothing more difficult for the brain than coming up with what to give another person for their anniversary. Sometimes we are overcome with unbearable torment when thinking about what to cook for dinner. Similar problems occur in creative professions and personal life. Let's see what people have prepared for us, whose lives push us to come up with a mountain of ideas here and now, otherwise the project will fail and their career will be in jeopardy.

It's rare for a book to have no author. The book “Creative crisis again? 90 ways to get out of it" from this category. Its well-known and not so famous representatives creative professions share their tips on how to fire up your brain and make it come up with tons of ideas. The advice is different, so are the professions, so everyone can find several unusual ways, and then, perhaps, get inspired and come up with your own (even coming up with your own way out of a creative crisis destroys the latter). Advice may even contradict each other, but that’s what art is all about. In addition, some people metaphorically describe their vision of creative crisis, which is also extremely interesting.

Find yourself a genius

The great thing about geniuses is that they usually occur in groups. If you find one genius, it will lead you to the rest. Collaborate with geniuses, especially unrecognized ones - they are more accessible and are waiting for your suggestions.

Keep trying, drawing and banging your head on the table

Advice from the illustrator. Very often, all ways out of a crisis are just ways. So just draw, draw anything, even if you deviate greatly from the topic. If you want to become an artist, draw and draw again, there is no other way. You are only an artist when you draw.

Make a lot of mistakes

The problem with creative crisis is the fear of making mistakes. This triggers procrastination, shirking, driven by fear. Mistakes are beautiful. Every mistake moves you towards and this new thinking will change everything. Treat mistakes as reasons to improve.

By the end of the bike ride, everything somehow gets better

I take a long bath, the water washes away all the bad thoughts. Then I clean up, because how can you think while there’s a mess around. If that doesn't work, I get on my bike and try not to think about the project. In the end, everything somehow works itself out.

Stay in an expensive hotel

Pay in advance for all three days you will spend here. Take everything you need with you. Now just write ten thousand words. If you feel like you're having a writer's block, think about the crazy amount of money you shelled out for your room.

Take any book. Anything - it can be Science fiction, IKEA furniture assembly instructions, religious text. Open a random page and a random offer. I came across a sentence: “There was no pain, but this force was destructive.” Wonderful. Think about how this phrase evokes feelings in the context of the text you are solving or the problem you are solving. Or: “The next morning I went to British museum in London to see the treasure." Perfect. Thoughts of vampires, cursed jewels, Indiana Jones, the Holy Grail come to mind. Why not? Mix texts from different authors, try to catch on to any phrase. Didn't like the phrase? It doesn’t matter, take another one, no one is forcing you to get hung up on anything.

Talk everything out

Panic. You are overwhelmed by a feeling of anxiety, you begin to rush around like a headless chicken. I make tea or coffee - I need to freshen up. Go out for a walk, talk to people about your problem or to yourself.

Change the chips

This is the Spanish equivalent and means rebooting your mind, changing your thinking, looking from the outside. Change something in your life, anything. Write not at the table, but in a cafe, change your food, go to places you would never go to.

Creative crisis is growth

Try to always remain optimistic, go to sleep and wake up with one single thought: “I haven’t run out of ideas, I’m just trying to come up with something better.” It’s still very simple - if you tell yourself that nothing will work out, nothing will work out.

No two creative crises are the same

There is no need to create rules for fighting. There are a lot of crises and they are all different, like snowflakes. Generate bad and mediocre ideas, so you can come across something worthwhile. Use all the methods you know. The same method can also become boring and temporarily stop working.

Why not drink coffee right before bed?

The best ideas come while trying to sleep. Place a notepad and pen next to you, and make it possible to turn on the light without even getting out of bed.

Do something

Prepare some baked goods, clean the apartment, wash the dishes, draw a face on a sticky note and stick it on your computer, chop some wood.

Creative crisis is normal

Great idea. Whenever a crisis comes, we begin to sprinkle ashes on our heads and the thought slips through: “Well, this happened. I have grown dull and old.” Get it out of your head and start replacing it with something else. The creative crisis will pass, it always passes, especially when you relax and do not put pressure on it.

Just. Explain. Problem.

Creative crisis very often occurs when we try to solve a problem that we have not formulated for ourselves. Isn't it stupid? Start looking at the problem. An amazing idea that everyone should understand - there is an answer to every problem. Not just any one, but any one. The answer is in the problem itself, that's what you need to understand. He has nowhere else to be. By understanding this, you will show your brain that there is a solution to the problem, which means your problem is solvable.

Books!

Why try to get some glimpse of an answer when you can rummage through books - thoughtlessly, unsystematically and set off a circuit in your brain.

Sit down, shut up and turn off the Internet

How long have you just thought in silence? Isn't it strange how we replace thinking with browsing? Sit back in your chair and just think. All geniuses did this.

Eat cheese before bed

And see what happens. You never know.

Creativity is a muscle

She also needs to rest and recover. Just like coaching. Alternate work with watching movies, games and books.

Deadline is the best remedy

Many projects you simply cannot take on until your survival mechanisms kick in. Promise others that you will complete the project in a couple of days. Or promise it to yourself. Make a project in 10 minutes. Let the project take, according to your estimates, a month, sit down and decide that you will do it in 10 minutes. And see what happens.

Pretend you're a possum

This is all great advice, served with an ironic sauce, and it is irony that allows us to release tons of our creative energy and allow us to relax. Experiment with these tips, print each of them on A4 sheet and hang it on the wall.

What methods of overcoming a creative crisis do you personally know? Share this in the comments.

Creative crisis can sometimes become a real scourge for copywriters, bloggers and, in general, everyone creative people regardless of nationality, age, gender and political views. Where does it come from? How to overcome it? And how can we make sure that it occurs as rarely as possible? Today's article will answer all these questions.

Where does creative crisis come from?

Creative crisis is a temporary condition in which creative process he falls into a stupor, ideas run out of his head like rats from a sinking ship, and he begins to be officially listed as missing.

This may be due to fatigue, stress, poor health, or banal symptoms. In the previous article, we considered such a negative concept as excessive motivation. It can also trigger a writer's block.

Creative crisis: ways to overcome it

Whatever the reasons lead to the development of mental dead ends, there are always several ways to put everything in its place, which we will consider further.

1. Good rest

One of the most harmless ways to overcome creative block is to have a good rest, fill your life with entertainment and do what gives you pleasure. If your conscience awakens, then let it rest with you. Iron “excuse”: every person needs rest, no matter how workaholic he may be.

2. Physical activity

Physical activity is another way to overcome creative block. Unlike relaxation, in this case, pleasure and entertainment are not expected, instead there are severe trials physical exercise, horizontal bars, dumbbells and other equipment.

Physical activity is useful not only because it will save you from a creative crisis, but also because additional physical activity will keep you constantly in shape and will serve as a prevention of troubles that plague people with a constantly sedentary lifestyle.

3. Task switching

If creative crisis prevents you from making progress in some endeavor, put it aside for a while and do something else. For example, if you are a freelancer and work from home, do the cleaning, cook dinner, hang a picture, or wash all the dirty laundry. If you work in an office, switch to other tasks, do a couple of organizational things, learn something new, etc.

Thus, you will kill two birds with one stone:

1. Get rid of creative block
2. You will do those things that you would have to do sooner or later

4. Brainstorm

If a creative crisis leads to the fact that thoughts stubbornly do not want to come to your mind or barely stretch one after another, getting lost on the way to your consciousness, you can speed them up. This is done with the help of so-called brainstorming.

The essence of the method is that you switch to the mode of generating ideas (and only generation). On at this stage Don't you think good idea or bad. You can generate complete nonsense, the main thing is to record all your thoughts.

Then review what you came up with. The result obtained will lead you to new thoughts and ideas, and the work will begin to boil. In any case, by examining the fruits of the generation of your mind, you will be a little distracted, and if you’re lucky, you’ll have fun, so it certainly won’t be in vain.

5. Tips

If a creative crisis torments you and gives you no rest, then you can always ask friends and acquaintances for advice. All people are social beings, everyone has connections, no matter in real life or on the web.

In addition, you can always use tools such as ICQ, Twitter , social media and other environments to get a whole bunch of advice and food for thought from people you may not even know.

6. Problems

A radical option to combat creative crisis. Artificially creating problems to create a sense of contrast. It is possible that by resorting to this method, you will get a sky full of diamonds, a headache, damaged relationships with people, extra financial expenses and total demoralization, but there will be no trace of a creative crisis. You can be sure that you will have something to say, something to describe, and you will be pierced by streams of violent feelings that you can throw out in your creativity.

This is the first phase. The second phase occurs when you deal with your problems and experience relief. After this, any creative crisis will not be worth a damn, and, therefore, as a problem, will cease to exist for you.

Main question: where to find problems? This good in Slavic countries Enough with the head. Flush the condom down the toilet from the upper floors, shout “Spartak champion!” in the locker room of Dynamo Kyiv, lean out of the window with a mop during events with the participation of senior officials under the windows - and problems will be guaranteed.

7. Revision and rework

If a creative crisis stubbornly prevents new ideas and thoughts from coming to you, you can use alternative approaches to work. One of these options is refining or reworking existing ideas.

It is physically impossible to always create something new. Whatever you do, there will always be people who have either already done something in this area or are doing something in this moment. And if so, there are no reasons preventing you from taking someone else’s idea and implementing it in your own way, making it better and finalizing it.

In this case, you:

1. First, you get rid of creative crisis
2. Secondly, develop a direction
3. Thirdly, you save a lot of time

Of course, conceptual novelty cannot be compared with any improvement, but, in many cases, this is relevant and justified. Take some ideas

Date: 2013-10-22

Hello site readers.

Today, on this wonderful day, I decided to write a lyrical article, which is written for all creative people, including myself. Creative crisis! What is this? What to do when it occurs? How to overcome a creative crisis? Everything is in this article. Read slowly, otherwise you may miss a lot.

Creative crisis. What it is?

What is creative crisis? To make it clear, I will say this: creative crisis is constipation in the head when fresh and brilliant thoughts do not fit into it. That is, a person thinks and thinks, and cannot come up with something valuable and suitable. For example, I write articles for a website and sometimes I don’t know what topic I should write on so that people would want to read this new article. That is, it happens to me that I sit stupidly and stare at the wall. Constipation in the head. That is, you also sit and strain, only your head, and not….

Musicians, poets, writers, bloggers, screenwriters sometimes face a creative crisis. I know that JK Rowling faced this. I once read about this in the newspaper, that one day she was very worried about this, called her husband, and he advised her to just calm down. Musicians also collide, and sometimes at the wrong time. At the peak of popularity you need to compose new music to stay afloat. And then unexpected constipation... that is, a creative crisis has arrived, which can destroy everything.

What to do and how to overcome a creative crisis?

Good question, isn't it? A creative crisis occurs when the state of flow ends. It's as if someone is blocking it. If you don’t know what a flow state is, I’ll explain: it’s when something like this pops into your head. great amount thoughts that a person does not have time to fix them. I am sure that you are familiar with such a situation when at school you were asked to write an essay, but you did not know where to start. We sat and sat, and then we just wrote the first line. Well, it’s clear that she’s not the best... Then the second, third, and it began to pour and away we go. Suddenly so many thoughts began to pop into your head that you didn’t have time to write them down. This is the state of flow. Creative crisis is a lack of flow.

So what should we do with it, with this creative crisis? It's easier to say where it comes from. And it arises when tension appears in the head. Well, maybe not in the head, but inside a person. To make it clearer, let's look at an example. I noticed that I have a passion that sometimes knows no bounds. I know how to blurt out a joke, make a joke, say something funny, imitate someone, and so on. I don't know how, but "funny thoughts" they come from somewhere. But if you put me on stage and say - "Make the crowd laugh", when I see a crowd of people watching and expecting something from me, I will fall into a stupor. The tension will block my flow, and other than “boo-boo” I won’t be able to say anything more.

Another example. Let's say you write articles for a blog or magazine. While you are alone in the room, it is easy for you to do this, but it is worth placing a person next to you who will criticize your every line - EVERYTHING! Internal tension will arise, and constipation will be right there.

A person simply needs tension in order to enter a state of flow. As always, I recommend it to you. Read the article -. In addition to meditation, I suggest you have a healthy and restful sleep, and finally go to the sauna or bathhouse. Maximum relaxation in such places is guaranteed.

When it comes creative crisis and good thoughts don’t come to mind, the time comes when you need to temporarily retire, except in cases where some deadlines have been set (write a book, compose music). If you do not have a time frame, then feel free to do so. Retirement means not thinking about your own life at all. creative work. Sometimes you need a break! What do you have? Do you have any other worries? Leave your work for two to three days. After rest, fresh thoughts may come.

To make it easier to forget about your business, I suggest you make an appointment with your friends. They have completely different interests that will help you switch your attention. This method really helps to overcome creative block. The main thing is to switch your attention. You won’t be able to do this alone, even if you watch a movie, your thoughts will hover around your project or business. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Another reason for creative crisis is the fading of happiness and joy. You know that it is difficult to work when you are in... And when a person is in a state and

Badly Great

How to overcome creative crisis?

Inspiration and creative crisis are always nearby, but there is still a difference between them.

Inspiration, in my opinion, is a mood, an uplift of spirit, a special state of “lightness” of creativity, when everything works out, including difficult things. A creative crisis is precisely the loss of insight, conjecture, and ideas.

Writer's block is most often associated with a lack of ideas. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. Or rather, this is one of the reasons, but there are others. Eg:

– there are ideas, but there is no ability to implement them;

– a feeling of dissatisfaction with one’s own results;

– emptiness after completion great job;

– the inability to navigate information flows can also cause a crisis;

– dissatisfaction from transferring what is in the head onto paper (file) – the so-called “dumbness”;

– the feeling that everything has already been written, said;

– lack of readers and a feeling of uselessness of creativity, etc.

There are many reasons, and each writer has his own.

I tried to collect ways and techniques for getting out of creative impasse, voiced on the Internet (as is the case with inspiration). I noticed that often the same methods are offered to return inspiration and to get out of a creative crisis. That’s why I sorted them and highlighted those that are necessary (or called necessary) to overcome a creative crisis.

Once again, Tin and I experimented on ourselves and came to the conclusion that there are many ways, but the choice of them is more individual than the choice when inspiration returns.

Look at the table and how to work with it so that it can benefit you too, you already know.

Methods and techniques	pros	Minuses	My comments	Comments Tina
Return of ideas
Meditation	15 minutes a day of relaxation and supposedly “not thinking” distracts you from thinking, gets you out of a dead end, returns strength, energy, new ideas and inspiration appear	It's not about sleep	I don’t know, I need to try... If I find these same 15 minutes)))	I can’t) I think I’ll fall asleep right away
Switch to thinking about the future	The method helps to temporarily forget about a problem, a task that cannot be solved, and positive pictures of the future provide rest and new solutions.	Thinking about the apocalypse is not conducive to inspiration	Hmm... some fantasies are replaced by others. Yes it helps	I often think about him, but I haven’t noticed any dependence on inspiration)
Switch to memories	Similarly, pleasant memories return strength and energy, and you can find solutions to problems in them	It's hard sometimes to separate good and bad memories	It's hard to say, this method is probably not for me. In any case, I don’t associate it with overcoming creative crisis	In the same way... You can pull sensations from the past, but these are only details when inspiration is already there. I didn’t notice the dependence of inspiration on pleasant or terrible memories
Try something new	Any creativity requires novelty, it’s worth looking for it, and then you will get new ideas	The method is difficult when, for example, you have already thought about the plot of the story	It’s good when you start something, but when the “skeleton” is done, something new can lead you astray. Hence the desire of the authors to cram into the story everything that he has seen and knows from the moment of birth	New ideas and genres – that’s how competitive ones – combined with an attitude – inspire. Or rather, they serve as guides along which the flower of the story will grow. Why not grow it?)))
Observations	Observing the world, people, situations and actions gives rise to certain reflexes and new thoughts	Not everyone knows how to observe correctly	I love this, sometimes I have to write down my thoughts on anything)))	Observations provide wonderful material for individual scenes. And inspiration can strike, especially when the “thought has gone”
Experiments	If the story is not being written, but there is an idea, experiment with the plot, with a set of characters, like with cubes, change, swap places, introduce into the story something that previously seemed unthinkable to you, etc. As a result, new ideas will appear in the process of such changes	Or they will destroy the story	I do this often))) It helps	It's difficult, but inspiring)
Self-development	Learn, discover, develop, master new things, explore - development is the basis of creativity. No other way	You can get carried away with something else and quit, for example, writing. Goals are important	I'm greedy in this regard, I grab everything and use it all later	Necessarily. When you study the subject you are describing, you get inspired, even to the point of changing the plot
Meditate	A creative task requires thought. They will lead you away from patterns and stereotypes	Patterns and stereotypes are not always harmful	Well, where would we be without this?)))	So this is a must. Also say “don’t forget to breathe”
Collect	Collect your ideas, impressions, feelings... Write down, preserve, save drafts - all this may come in handy one day. And in times of crisis, returning to an old thing can be a way to overcome it	Don’t forget about order, the archive is not chaos	Agree 100%	This is more of a habit than a method of inspiration)
Mind games
Free associations	Open the dictionary to any word and write down all the thoughts associated with it that arise in your head. Or wish for two random numbers, corresponding to the page number and line, then open and find the corresponding place in the book. Or ask someone to give you an association, work with it. The result is a ton of new ideas.	Remember the randomness	Interesting, yes, sometimes a conversation in our chat gives the impetus to write something	Unfortunately, I have too many of them, and therefore rarely use them statistically. Most ideas die out due to lack of time for implementation.
Free writing	Freewriting: you must, within a short period of time, say 10 minutes, without pausing or thinking, write everything that comes to your mind. Sometimes it turns out very interesting	Then we will have to refine “what I see is what I sing”	I rarely write like this, very often. More often - poetry	I used to write) Now - rarely, I try to “put” free thoughts into the framework of “debts”, for example, in notes or reports
Find your game	There are many intellectual games. Find those that interest you and that personally get you out of the crisis		I've never specifically looked for it, but I think it makes sense	I can't imagine)
Our habits and requirements
Don't expect perfection	Bringing everything to perfection is good, but you can’t do it endlessly	Remember perfectionism	Well... I'm a very demanding person. Sometimes it gets in the way)))	I know that perfection is unattainable, and not abstract. But it is working on imperfections that gives a very strong creative impulse
Don't wait for the Muse (inspiration)	Start creating without waiting for inspiration. Craft and creativity are like brothers. Where there is one, there is another	It is sometimes difficult to understand whether craft has developed into creativity	This helps me personally	Waiting is not our method, life is short
Nowadays
Creative suggestions	Be active, agree to all creative proposals, competitions, projects - this gives new experience, knowledge and opportunities	It takes time	I want! There would be even more time	I love it) But I don’t like to participate in something that depends on someone else’s inspiration, if there are problems with it)
Organize your time	Sometimes your many ideas make it difficult to focus on one thing. Set priorities and allocate time	It is sometimes difficult to set priorities and set goals	Good advice, but I don’t always follow it, I can get carried away with something else	Life is an unpredictable thing. I would replace it with "use the time"
Don’t waste time on social networks, email, browsing websites, etc.	It's distracting and wastes your time.	The threat of loneliness	Strange advice, the world no longer exists without it	Come on, that's nonsense. Going outside or walking around sites is good, if in moderation). And it influences inspiration positively if it influences
Activating creativity
Divide	Take a break from the global creative task, break it into small parts, work with them sequentially, and then put them back into one whole, this helps overcome the crisis	Avoid Chaos	I use it sometimes, especially if it’s a novel, say, or an article	This is rather a method rather than a reason for activation. Work with logical blocks organizes
Visualization	Visualization of thoughts immediately revives them, remember the drafts of the classics, drawings in the margins	You need to stop in time	Yes, it helps me. I really love books that have illustrations.	I love it) I really like to draw pictures for what I write. There are works that inspire you because of the very atmosphere - you want to drop everything and run and write
Find the cause of the stupor, dead end	If you're stuck, it means you can't clearly identify the problem that's stopping you from moving forward. Finding it means finding a way out of the dead end	Sometimes it's hard to do it on your own	I agree, everything has a reason, if you understand it, you can eliminate it	Well, I found it... So what?)) Usually these are external problems. Awareness of them is not a secret and not a solution
Make the decision easy	Sometimes the solution to the problem itself is clear to the author, but turns out to be very difficult to implement. Hence the stop. Try to find an easy solution to a creative problem or put it aside for a while	Lightness is not always good for the work or its meaning	I don't know, I love it complex tasks, they just help overcome the creative crisis	Not interested. Just going down on a sled is not as interesting as bobsleigh and doesn’t give you the same thrill and impulse to repeat it
Remember the reader	Target audience is important. The author must understand for whom he is writing. This focus helps to concentrate on the meaning of the work and the recipient, creates a motive for creativity	The eternal question: who is following whom?	Sometimes I think)))	The reader is an incentive to write “for him”... In principle, sometimes it helps)
Creative panic	Creative panic forces you to grab onto everything at once, and in the end nothing is completed. Use all the methods listed above to prevent it.	Emotions sometimes get in the way	Again, I don’t know, I don’t remember this	Panic? I don't understand
Routine work	Editing, proofreading, reading aloud, corrections of various kinds - all this is routine work that can be done during a crisis, and which helps to overcome it	It still needs to be done	But I love this work and also consider it creative	You can get carried away with routine work and plow mountains. She can be very captivating, and if this is writing, then probably too
The principle of the “first phrase”	Never get hung up on the beginning. Otherwise, it’s a dead end. Write a draft right away and don’t edit anything for the time being	Still there is a limit to this	Of course, there is always the option to go back to the beginning. But usually my draft isn't very long because I end up getting annoyed by the incorrect writing. However, the fast writing method is very good	No, when writing I leave “markers” where I am not happy with the text. And while I’m writing, I’m finishing up these passages with a “second layer” and coming back. Ignoring the second layer is almost violence, why?

After thinking and filling out the table, Tin and I came to the conclusion that quite simple things most often help to overcome a creative crisis:

1. Observations

2. Experiments

3. Self-development

4. Visualization

5. Routine daily work

I wonder if your opinion matches ours?

There is a good word “plow”. Plow - in any case. Work and understand that creative work you yourself need...

And so I looked at all these collected methods and techniques, thought, and I was missing something. I would like to say one more thing: in my opinion, there are things that are either not mentioned or not explained in numerous articles about inspiration and creative impasse.

The important thing is author's emotional environment .

Imagine a writer is writing a novel. He gets used to the fate of the heroes and experiences a certain emotional condition. Like an actor on stage, it can be very difficult for him to switch it to something else, but the actor learns this!

We often dream of scenes from a future novel or story, we think about it all the time, we are sad or love together with our heroes.

You need to be able to get out of this state. And it's not that simple.

Sometimes it helps "cinema" reception , when the author, as it were, mentally edits the film, mixing different scenes of the future story and not allowing himself to be deeply immersed in the emotions of one scene.

Creative fun – also a good way out of their crisis. When an author shuffles the actions of his characters this way and that, like cards, it helps him find new ideas.

However, many do not know how to stop; they write series, not realizing that everything is already over.

And here we need new emotions and a long rest, perhaps switching to something else. It is known that L. Tolstoy, while “resting” from War and Peace, studied and learned some languages.

Finding and eliminating the cause.

It is important, in my opinion, to find pinpoint the cause loss of inspiration and creative crisis. And the reasons are different.

External reasons It’s quite easy to detect: troubles at work, at college, a rude salesman or bus driver, fatigue, family problems, everyday difficulties, lack of necessary resources for creativity, etc.

Personally, it’s difficult for me to create if I, say, have a quarrel with someone. And one day I discovered the cause of the crisis in - believe it or not - a broken kettle. Really: I couldn’t write normally, all the time being distracted by boiling water in a saucepan. Both serious and funny can be the reason.

All these reasons are not only negative. Completely positive things can also throw you out of a creative rut. For example, if I have a date in the evening, I think about the date, not about the next chapter of the novel.

Internal reasons not so easy to detect.

Lack of ideas is not a reason in itself. Why aren't there any? That is the question.

And then, if you look for reasons, sometimes very interesting things happen. For example, you sketched out the plot of a story, but it doesn’t get written, you suffer and don’t understand that your inner “I” is struggling with all its might to resist the development and actions of the hero that you came up with. Or you simply lack the experience and knowledge to develop ideas. Or maybe the “scatter” of ideas does not give you the opportunity to put an end to it.

But! It is important not only to find the causes, but also to eliminate them. Otherwise nothing will work. And if in order to regain inspiration you need to make peace with someone, you will have to do it. And if new ideas require acquiring new knowledge, you will have to do it.

I’ll say more - even creativity brought people out of a state of grief. And I know those who wrote one book - a book of memory - but it brought them back to life. What can we say about a broken kettle, the very fact of whose existence just begs to be included in a pamphlet?

You and I understand that problems in our lives always exist: big or small, tragic or not, but, one way or another, we have to solve them.

That's true “...what do I care about Faust, an extravaganza of rockets gliding with Mephistopheles in the heavenly parquet! I know that the nail in my boot is worse than Goethe’s fantasy!”– wrote V. Mayakovsky.

What to do? But here, in my opinion, motivation will help.

Motivation as a way to overcome a creative crisis.

Strictly speaking, motivation in its most primitive meaning is an understanding of why (or for whom) you are doing something.

Even if this is so (superficially), the motive of creativity will still be present.

Often motivation appears spontaneously, from the external environment .

For example, there are people who support you. They are waiting for your creativity, they read you, they criticize you - in any case, they are not indifferent to you. There may be many such people, or it may be two close friends or a couple of relatives.

It is very difficult to write something completely alone. This is probably why a huge number of graphomaniacs, having found two or three fans of their graphomania, hold on to them as if they were a lifeline. And this is good. It's inspiring. Man creates - for them. Of course, it is advisable not to feel like a star and to study. Let's remember the famous lines: “...they accepted praise and slander with indifference...”

I am lucky in this regard: my work is supported by my family, friends and loved one. I have a circle of readers whose opinions I value and whom I respect and love. My loved one freezes and practically does not breathe when I do something there. And this is also one of the reasons now for love, and not just creativity.

Firstly, there is still readers, critics, there are communities (website) .

I think there is no need to be shy about asking for a review; on our website you can order a review, and directly contact the inquisitor with a request to read the work. There is no need to be afraid of this; on the contrary, whether they scold you or praise you, this is a community that will give you experience.

Secondly, there is no motive - create it yourself!

Let it be anything: from dreams that your story about how a shrew found the meaning of life will receive Nobel Prize in the field of literature to imagining how your friend or someone on the site will read it, that you yourself will be happy and satisfied.

The degree of your adequacy and perception is important here: it’s no secret that authors who suddenly found a couple of readers are starred as if they had already been published in a million copies on Mars.

Underestimation often creates conditions for creative crisis. However revaluation Same.

If you learn to stick to the “golden mean”, you will go oh so far.

I’ll tell you about myself - I most often underestimate myself, and this really bothers me.

As a result, I came to the following conclusions:

1. There are no universal methods, everything is individual for everyone. And here, oddly enough, you need to be inspired to find these very own ways and then use them.

2. Elementary laziness and lack of responsibility for one’s creativity are very often mistaken for a loss of inspiration and a creative crisis.

3. Inability to search, lack of knowledge lead to eternal rhetorical sob questions: how can I regain inspiration or overcome the crisis?

It’s clear how. But no one sees what you do. Any action is better than inaction.

This concerns my personal attitude to issues of this kind.