In this season of feeling like too little butter scraped thin over too much bread, how do you refill the well of creativity?
Home / Meet the Mad Genius Club / Navigating from Writing to Publication
Home / Meet the Mad Genius Club / Navigating from Writing to Publication
In this season of feeling like too little butter scraped thin over too much bread, how do you refill the well of creativity?
Mad Genius Club 
6 responses to “Refilling the Well”
I’ve only suffered this when I am in great physical or mental stress. (Although the former is easier to find myself in as I get older.) My best cure is then self care: sleep, proper food, exercise. Then a steady “diet” of words and images that stimulate my imagination.
If I am overwhelmed with other responsibilities (bills, cleaning, catchup, etc.), I can’t refill the well. So my process for refilling has to be dealing with the mind-consuming distractions so they don’t block the fun stuff. I have a mountain of such barriers to deal with for at least the next couple of months.
Have a solid foundation. As clairk said, drink water, eat food, have enough sleep. Then, once basic needs are met, apply exercise and distraction. For me, the exercise is never far away and the distraction is fuzzmonsters and music. Once the distractions kill the stress, the words fall down like snow off a tree limb, all down the back of your shirt and annoying you until they get out!
Since at least 2021, December has generally been “take a break from first draft writing” time for me, although sometimes, like this year, it’s “revisions, publication and promotion” time as well, which basically switches me out of creative writing mode, period.
I just try to live through it.
Take some time to yourself, try not to freak out meeting expectations. Other people’s, or your own. That’s all I’m doing.
As the urologist said, “this too shall pass.”
Chase plot bunnies. Thus ending up with still more projects, alas.