Musings of a Frustrated Creative

I must confess, I’ve made—and broken—the solemn vow to do something creative every day more times than I care to count. “I’ll write a little bit each day,” I say to myself. Yet, like clockwork, after a solid week of productivity, I’ll hit that inevitable wall. It’s not for lack of time, either. Some days, I simply can’t summon the willpower to lift a pen or even open a Word document. I tell myself, “Tomorrow, I’ll write double,” but, three days later, I’m neck-deep in guilt for letting yet another dry spell take over.

Inspiration is a fickle mistress. She shows up unannounced, often at the most inconvenient times—usually when I’m far from any device or notebook. When I finally manage to sit down, I stare at the screen as if expecting divine intervention. Honestly, that’s much better spent on bigger crises than my writer’s block, yet I await it for hours on end to no avail. On the rare occasions I want to write, it’s like my brain rebels by offering up a complete blank. Thanks for nothing, usually overactive mind. Taking a nap when I need you most—how could you?

When I do manage to scrape together a little motivation, it’s usually over something trivial. Maybe I’ve stumbled across a particularly ridiculous meme, and suddenly I have feelings about it—deep, philosophical ones that, for some reason, require an essay to process. My muse, apparently, loves wasting my time on the utterly inconsequential. Then, once in a blue moon, inspiration strikes out of nowhere, and I’m off to scribble furiously until I’ve managed to turn a stray thought into some poetic nonsense that might actually pass for a poem if you squint at it the right way.

Speaking of poetry, we’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship for years. I don’t consider myself a poet, per se—poetry seems far too fancy a label for the random jumble of thoughts that occasionally dribbles from my brain. Yet, somehow, I accumulated hundreds of poems. Most of them never make it beyond a few disjointed lines, but a surprising number exist in what can only be described as “a state of completion.” (I’m using the term “completion” very loosely here.)

When it comes to actual story writing, however, I’ve got a graveyard full of half-finished novels and stories that only ever got past the starting gate because of sheer force of will. There are the handful of projects that are “relatively finished,” by which I mean I’ve looked at them once and thought, “Yeah, that’s probably good enough.” Then there are the others, the ones that have undergone so many personality changes that I don’t even recognize them anymore. One day, it’s a cozy mystery; the next, it’s a sci-fi opera about sentient tea kettles. (Actually, that might be interesting.) I have no idea what’s happening anymore.

Honestly, being creative is a full-time job. If you knew what it entailed, even I probably wouldn’t have signed up for it. People see artists or writers and assume we’re just lounging around, waiting for some grand idea to smack us in the face. I wish it were that easy. No, we’re sifting through a mountain of mental garbage, hoping to find a nugget of something usable. Sadly, there’s far more garbage than metallic nuggets. It’s no wonder that most creatives I know—myself included—suffer from some form of insomnia. I’m pretty sure our brains just refuse to shut down out of sheer spite.

What truly baffles me, though, is how people insist that meditation is the cure-all for creative block. Right, because sitting in silence with my thoughts sounds like exactly what I need. Before you ask, yes, I’ve tried it. So, what happens? My brain decides it’s time to throw a thousand new ideas into the mix, like some sort of masochistic game show. It’s like trying to organize a room by tossing more junk into it. More stress, more ideas, more bedlam. Thanks, but no thanks.

For me, creativity comes from a weird place of excitement and, frankly, some very questionable obsessions. I’ve gotten worked up over things that would probably make most people concerned for my mental health. But, just as quickly as I get hyped about a new project, I’ll lose interest and move on to something else entirely. If attention spans were graded, I’d score a solid D-minus, just enough to squeak by and not walk off a cliff. This is fine when you’re writing short essays or articles, but not so much when you’re trying to weave together a coherent plot. Hence why I have approximately three thousand unfinished stories littering my cloud storage.

I once did that whole NaNoWriMo thing—National Novel Writing Month. Per the contest goals, I churned out 50,000 words in 30 days. While that sounds like an accomplishment, about maybe half of those words were worth saving. The rest were pure drivel. The plot of that story went in so many directions that even I got lost in it. So, even years later, it’s yet another back-burner project, doomed to live in purgatory until I muster up the courage to dive back into it, which is likely never.

The following year, I thought, “Screw it, I’ll just write whatever comes to mind.” I’ll have no plot, no plan, just pure stream-of-consciousness. It was a train wreck, and I didn’t get over half the prescribed amount. Yet, some of the stuff I wrote during that disaster of a month actually turned out usable. Yet, once again, it became another back burner project that’s still in purgatory. So, while I succeeded at NaNoWriMo once in the traditional sense, I walked away with nothing to show for it. One of these Novembers, I will do it again, but with zero plot. I’ll just have a main character, set up some wacky premise, then whatever can happen will happen.

The massive backlog of half-baked documents I still manage to this day is a testament to how creativity ebbs and flows like some kind of temperamental tide. Some days, it’s a deluge, and I can’t stop the words from pouring out. Other days, I’m staring at a blank screen like it’s personally offended me. I’ve stopped fighting it. When the inspiration strikes, I ride that wave until I inevitably wipe out. When it doesn’t, I start brainstorming ideas for future projects. It’s all part of the process, though, or so I tell myself.

My brain never, ever stops; even when it takes a break, it’s cooking up something in some top-secret corner of my skull. It’s like one of those wind-up toys that just keeps going, even after you’ve begged it to stop. This is why I’ve adopted a strategy I call “brain-dumping,” where I throw every stray thought onto the page, just to get it out of my head. It’s messy, and half the time, I have no idea if any of it will amount to anything. But that’s the thrill of it—not knowing whether you’re sitting on a goldmine or just another pile of garbage. Some of these brain-dumps become essays so poignant they actually get published. (The entirety of my published essay collection Cloud Pieces is evidence of this.)

So, if you ever find yourself stuck in a creative rut, my advice is to not fight it. Just create whatever nonsense pops into your head, no matter how silly it seems. Doodle, write, sing, whatever it takes to get it out of your head. The important thing is to keep moving onward. You never know when you’ll stumble upon something worthwhile in the mess.

Also, hey, if you’ve got any weird tips for getting inspired, do share. Misery loves company, after all.

~ Amelia Desertsong