Having finished off my Urban Fantasy, Distant Shore, and sent it sailing away into the unknown, I’m back to working on my Jakirian fantasy series. As usual, starting a new project is like trying to get blood out of a stone. Added to the normal challenge of changing channels is the creative burnout I am experiencing from the massive push I gave Distant Shore in the lead up to completing it. I’ve never put so much into a piece of work. My creative storehouse of energy is doing a really good impression of a hole filled with super-hard concrete. I reach in and just get blank grey.
That’s not to say I’m not making progress. It’s just painfully slow. When you’re firing, and the work is flowing, all those myriad little creative solutions you need to rework prose and rewrite come so effortlessly. Now – not so much.
At the moment I’m just gritting my teeth and hoping that time will allow the old creative engine to crank up again.
How do you deal with creative burnout? Anyone got any ideas?
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons blog.
Mad Genius Club 
22 responses to “Creative Burnout”
This morning, I watched Kiki’s Delivery Service for the first time. If I understood it correctly, they advised to first to try to push through it and if that didn’t work, to go off and “do nothing”. Take a walk and think of nothing. I think even “stay in bed and mope over it”. (I finished watching the movie around 7 am and then watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky right after. Both while I was roleplaying with my bff. And then slept. And about two hours ago I played in a different rpg, so it’s kind of a blur now with lots of different stories in my head.) Presumably after you’ve done your “do nothing” period for awhile, inspiration is going to mug you and you’ll go back to it.
That’s not a bad method of it, honestly. Try to push through and then if that doesn’t work, let your mind lie fallow.
To be honest, I generally tend to go out and “plant different seeds”. I binge on different types of stories, hoping to revitalize the soil of my mind with planting things that are compatible, but put different nutrients back.
So, for right now, I’m spending some time playing new roleplaying games with new people and downing “heartwarming” (honobono) media like Ghibli movies, and marathoning “Destination Truth” for kind of my supernatural/weird and travel fix while I draw samurai and child mecha riders and other Japanese figures. Pretty much trying to avoid romance entirely since that’s what I’ve been writing and what I need to get a move on writing again soon. Eventually, I want to return to the more familiar, so since the closest thing I tend to consume (apart from regular rps with my best friend, which don’t count) that is “romance heavy” are dating sims, “reverse harem” manga/anime (ie: girl being pursued by two and generally more boys), or boy/boy romance manga, I *usually* end up writing instead since dating sims, reverse harem, and good boy/boy manga are a little harder to find if you’re picky.
But probably my most used method is that I tend to study “tangentially related” resources. I might go, “Well, so’n’so main character works at a movie theater, so maybe I’ll trawl the “ask me anything” forums on Reddit to see if anyone did one on working at one.” or maybe I’ll read a book on the history and development of the movie theater business. Or maybe I’ll watch a movie that has to do with a character there working at a movie theater. Sometimes I might do something more kinetic. In the movie theater character example, I might go to the movies and just pay a lot of attention to what the staff are doing. Or maybe I’ll sort of do a mock movie theater experience by giving my family a choice of movies, setting a time for when we’ll watch, and pop them popcorn. (It’s starting to get to be a very bad example to work with, though. So for another example: maybe a character is learning to juggle and I might watch some Youtube videos of it before trying it myself just so I’ll remember to mention the feel of the ball hitting my palm and the almost simultaneous slap of the leather hitting the palm and the hissing *tsss* sound of the sand shifting inside.) Something I might not have thought of just from watching the video.)
The “related, even if loosely, to what I’m doing” method has the benefit of giving me the background I need, but more-so it gives me ideas I might not have had working “cold”. I might learn that in a certain city, the local juggling scene doesn’t acknowledge that you’re “serious” about it unless you’ve busked and realize I should have my character mention he busks on the weekends if he doesn’t have anything better to do… and that might be how he met his new friend, because he busks in a nice arcade that’s got a movie theater at one end of it. So, yeah, it started raining and the juggler came into the movie theater all soaked and…
I’ll stop rambling at you and derail this train of thought now. xD
Hi, Chella. I like the idea of letting my mind go fallow. Unfortunately life and deadlines are not co-operating. Also, I guess I find it hard to let myself off the hook. Some good ideas there. OK. I admit it. It’s just me! I probably just need to let myself recharge.
Have fun with the juggling. That’s something on my ‘to do’ list (which is very long:)).
The advice I’ve seen (and taken) that seems to work is to go for a long walk/run on your own and think about the characters/world etc. as you do so. It may not lead to immediate inspiration but it does get you back in the mindset and give you ideas for where to go next in that world.
That’s a good idea. Let yourself connect again with the story. I think my push to be productive is preventing me doing that. I need to slow down and let myself inside it all again.
I don’t seem to have been able to do anything creative since I started back to college, so that’s 2 years now and running. But I’ve also had some severe teenager stress during the same time. I try not to be too distressed that my creativity seems completely gone. I tell myself that there are good reasons for that and that this part of my life isn’t permanent. (In fact, I’ve been telling myself that I’m learning to finish things and that this will likely continue over when I can create again so it’s all good. I almost believe it, too.) What is sad is that I really want to escape into make-believe but it seems to be (temporarily) broken.
I will say though, that *consuming* a great deal of fiction, books and TV/movies, seems to bring on at least a tickle of the urge to create my own stories. And that’s usually been the case. My biggest urges to make up new stories usually come in response reading or watching something and thinking, “Wow, that was so stupid, it should have been *this* way…”
It’s hard to fight a battle on every front. The fact is sometimes is just legitimately impossible to be creative. You are probably fuelling up for the future in ways you don’t realise. Keep a note of all those ideas!
One’s creative energy gets “Used” in different ways.
When I had a fairly mindless furniture assembly job, I was a veritable fountain of funny one-liners. (Unfortunately, I rarely got to write them down before I forgot them). When I had a more intellectually demanding job, they slowed to a trickle. When I started writing stories they pretty much stopped, but instead I had all kinds of story ideas.
The thing to look for is what is consuming your creativity instead of letting you use it where you want to.
Hi, Mauser. That’s a fascinating idea! I’ll give that some thought. I have so many things going on right now, maybe there are more than one thing that are contributing. Cheers,
When I was getting a prototype facility up and running, I had no outside-of-work creative impulses… I didn’t even want to fly for months. Once it was up and running smoothly enough I was phasing out parts of my job such that they could be replaced by a barely-trained 18-year-old, I was itching to fly, to paint, to go hike a mountain range, to blog, participate in a D&D campaign, everything.
I refer to it as “work consumes my brain” – and when it stops consuming my brain, I need to find lots of things to fill the off hours, or I’ll get bored enough I’ll start job-hunting out of reflex to find something fully challenging again.
I find it helpful to look at whatever is stopping me from doing what I say I want to do, have time for, and would like to finish: it is usually some kind of fear: fear of not being good enough for the story. Fear of having people point a finger at ME because of something a character does or says. Fear of looking silly or irrelevant. Fear of other people knowing what I daydream about.
I find I have to look the resistance squarely in the face (do resistances have faces?) instead of hoping it will go away.
Often it turns out to be something trivial but personal – and getting it down on paper/screen gets it out of MY head, which only seems to be able to hold one idea at a time. It’s as if my mind doesn’t want me to forget – but once it’s recorded I can move on.
It’s a reverse idea to Mauser’s, but along the same line: if you were being logical, you’d write, but something is keeping you from being logical, so figure it out. Mental jujitsu.
That’s a good approach. I think one of the things that prevents me from really examining that emotional level is the drive to progress. I think that if I take time out to examine things like that, then I am not progressing. But sometimes I guess it would be better over all just to get it out of your system.
I first check my diet and allergy meds. A low carb diet helps my brain work better, but it’s so easy to slip back into “just one cookie” when you’re busy. My allergies, it’s a matter of finding a balance between being able to sleep and being creative.
But then there’s organizing the work itself, to make it less oppressive. Pick a single element. If you don’t have an idea what the story is about, what the problem is, work _just_ on that. Then when you’ve got that pinned down think about the characters. Do just a single thing, so it doesn’t feel overwhelming, and so you feel like you’ve _finished_ a task and can give yourself a break.
If you’ve got the pieces altogether, then think of a single scene. Just one. Couple hundred words, maybe. Don’t think of the whole, or how many more you have to do. Just do one scene. Turn the characters loose for an argument, a battle, a quiet talk while sharpening their . . . what do they do with those ceramic things? Sorry, squirreled myself.
Just, do a single thing, and feel good about finishing that little bit.
Hi, Pam. Breaking things down into small chunks is always a good idea. Damn – I knew it was those damn cookies!
Whenever I start a new, long piece of fiction, I always think that my last one was it. That I’m done, spent, stick a fork in me as a writer. The only thing that gets me through that part is just “ass in the chair,” until the cobwebs are blown out and my mind has regeared itself and I finally have something staring back at me on the monitor. And knowing that this is a regular thing that I’ve always gotten through before.
Once a piece is actually going, it’s like some switch gets thrown in my head, and walking the dog is what works for me. Just walking on my own never does it, though. The dog being goofy and wanting to make friends with everyone distracts me enough that whatever’s churning in the back of my brain doesn’t have me consciously trying to “help” it along. Whatever the issue was, it’s usually resolved by the time we get back home.
Those five years when I didn’t have a dog were hell on my writing, let me tell you.
Hi, Wesley. I like going for walks, but it’s kind of the reverse for me. I always feel like a should take the dog, then I am stressing about what the dog is up to. What I really enjoy is walking alone – then my mind settles down more. Good idea though.
I flip to nonfiction (if I’ve been doing fiction) and back. Kinda like changing up my workout, so I use the muscles in slightly different ways. I’m still not certain if writing lesson plans and course syllabi is fiction, nonfiction, or futile, though. 😉
Hey, do you colour in your writing plans:) When I studied at school and Uni I spent a lot of times doing plans, then more plans, then more plans – then ended up doing frantic cramming. The plans looked good though.
Eh, not too much color, not after that incident with the black highlighter . . . 😉
I “outline,” meaning I write about how I don’t know what is going to happen next, and it’s all so hard, and maybe this could happen, but it won’t work, or that could happen. At the end, I usually have some ideas. Creativity through focused whining.
Also, running or walking often works.
Hi, Laura. That’s a good way to get back into the story. I just need to find my own way to bring it back to life again. Cheers,
This quote makes me laugh: “starting a new project is like trying to get blood out of a stone”
“Writing is easy, you just stare at a blank page until drops of blood form on your forehead.”