Because you're not using that organ to its fullest extent. Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards can drastically improve your artwork in an amazingly short time. You can find copies of this book for free online, and it's well worth it. It teaches you how to draw what you see, rather than what your left brain tells you an object should look like. There are exercises that teach you to not draw an object, but rather the space around the object, freeing you to not draw a caricature of the object.
I feel you, I was blocked for 25years.
And then I stumbled upon Julia Cameron's "The artist's way"
It's a toolbox, packed with exercices and inspirational quotes, It's a course in several chapter to unblock you and pick off your shoulders all those bricks of compressed bad feelings abd false beliefs that are bringing you down. You'll need a notebook and pencil, and often your art tools too.
It has effectively unblocked me. I can create again, instead of just piling up new crafts and arts materials (I just have to buy my favourite watercolor when there's 30% off, even if I know I won't use it in the near future, for instance), that came in handy now that I'm unblocked and with the lockdown.
The link sends you to the "look inside" feature so you can see how it's organized. I didn't follow the 12weeks timeline, I just grab the book and continue when I feel I'm ready for it.
I still do the Morning Pages every now and then, to cleanse myself from any dark thoughts that are bringing me down, a little like a pensieve (HP).
Highly recommend it! But not in audio, this is a book you'll be going back to, better get the paperback.
no, no, /u/MattDemers really did mean "War of Art"! The title's obviously a play on Sun Tzu's work, but War of Art has to do with overcoming internal creative hurdles and the like. Here's the link to the Amazon page.
I haven't read it myself yet, but I saw it on a suggestion thread on a different subreddit a while back so it made its way onto my "look into" list.
Try some kind of system for building outlines. Here is one, and really the article details the whole thing. His book on Amazon is just an expaned treatmetn including a worked example. And ther are others like Take of Your Pants.
Looking at a tool like the Snowflake Method might help you hone in on a more concrete plot. You can also find the book on Amazon.
There's a really great book that explains this and gives you some tips about going about it - and it's permafree! It's called "Reader Magnets" by Nick Stephenson. You can find it on Amazon here.
ETA a word I left out.
I don't have any constructive criticism. I have been in engineering roles my whole life but cone from an artistic background. I worked through the book Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain a few years ago. Doing the exercises really helped free me up.
Write. Write the first sentence. Then the next. Then the next. Do the work.
What other distractions do you have? How much time do you spend on Reddit, Youtube, etc?
Check out Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. It's about trying to break what he calls Resistance, which is everything that keeps you from doing your creative endeavors. Work, homelife, keeping house, etc. Everything little thing that creeps into your brain and keeps you from the 'ass in chair' that you need to get down to work.
What Pressfield ultimately said that resonated with me is the idea of Turning Pro.
A Professional shows up every day and does the work to the best of their ability in the time that they have available. Think about your day job. Do you ever get "day job block" or even if you're feeling like shit, do you still show up, put your head down, and do the work because it needs to get done?
Turn Pro and do the work.
> ITS LIKE IM BLOCKING
You're not alone. I know it feels like it, but I promise, you are not, there's a ton of us who understand. A fellow creative friend of mine and I have discussed and researched this phenomenon for years.
As to how to overcome it, it's personal, because the root of the issue is almost always personal, but there are common denominators and a couple of go-to sources for me when I find myself struggling with it, are:
(1) This article which was a fucking wake-up call to me:
https://iheartintelligence.com/discipline-beats-motivation/
(2) And this book, which brilliantly identifies the "IT'S LIKE I'M BLOCKING" problem and provide some damn smart ways to fight it (yes the book is about "creative" processes, but honestly it can be applied to anything):
https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Steven-Pressfield-ebook/dp/B007A4SDCG/
This book has helped me so much, I'd send you the $10 to buy it if I could. Try a local library, they almost certainly have a copy.
That reminded me of one of my favorite books. It is a biography on Nikola tesla which happens to be free on Amazon right now, too. It's titled Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century
I have a PO Box away from my home from before I started writing, so I use that one. I've seen one or two people say that they just use their home address. I guess it just depends on how comfortable you are with having it out there. The minuscule chance of some deranged person knowing where I live is enough for me to not want to use my home address but maybe I'm being paranoid. Still, I figure better to just pay for a PO Box than have to move to avoid stalker obsessed with me and my beautiful prose.
Personally, I haven't seen huge returns from my mailing list--I only have about fifty subscribers so far. But from everything I hear and read they are an enormous resource and one of the few things you should definitely have.
I mean, imagine being able to email a group of people who are specifically interested in your work every time you release a title--and then get a bunch of sales from them, and then get the boost in rank for you book that they would give.
I wouldn't let not having a mailing list keep you from publishing--if it is. But I'd say it's worth setting up. Check out <em>Reader Magnets</em>. It's free on Amazon and it sells the importance of a mailing list better than I could.
A PO Box is definitely an expense, but if you're planning on doing this as a business--as a career--rather than I hobby, I'd say basically: suck it up, if at all possible. It's just one of those things you need to spend money on. Lol, I feel like my dad saying, "suck it up."
I outright defy you to get https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive-ebook/dp/B005GSYXU4/ and some charcoals & some toothy paper, & replicate what you just called "lacks any sort of creativity or artistic expression".
It is stupendously tough to do.
And even within the hyper-realistic art crowd, one can see that some of them have some kind of magic in their work...
Seriously: try doing the experiment!
( I recommend charcoals because it makes it much easier to reach dominant-hemisphere-shift, from left-brain-mode into right-brain-mode )
Discipline is doing what you should do even when you don't feel like it. That's why it's so much better than motivation, which is fleeting. Unfortunately this applies to our hobbies and creative pursuits too. There a book about this in fact, called The War of Art. It's a short read and I recommend it, but the tldr is that you just have to show up even when you don't feel like it.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Steven-Pressfield-ebook/dp/B007A4SDCG
I don’t mind but you should work on writing one as it will help with you writing ability.
You might also check out Snowflake Method it gave me lots of good strategies for writing.
Good luck
I truly understand where you’re coming from. I loved writing when I was a kid and then, for unfathomable reasons (to me now at almost 50) stepped away from it. I want to recommend this book—it has changed my life:
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Even if you do only some of the exercises, this book can help change you’re thinking and get back in touch with the writer inside you.
Regarding art block. There's a great book called The Artist's Way. https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B006H19H3M
It can get a little too meta-spiritual for some, but it is filled with processes and thoughts on nurturing the creative spirit. It requires some real work, but its well worth it in my opinion. Morning Pages alone is a big game changer.
If you're having issues with getting the story together, I highly recommend Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker. I've struggled with getting cohesive, engaging stories out for ages, and I really think this is the book that made things click for me. If you're finding yourself staring at your drafts feeling like something's missing, or it's dragging, or there's a problem you just can't put your finger on, this book might help with it. I bought a physical copy to highlight in, but a digital copy does just ad well.
I am not affiliated with Ms Hawker in any way, I'm just really hype. This book has noticably improved my writing just in the like, week that I've had it. Even just my short fanfics have increased in quality now that I have some frames to show me wtf to do.
Also, hmu when you finally publish! I would fucking LOVE to read your story— or stories if it becomes a series!
IMO you're very confused and also most people out there have it all wrong.
I strongly suggest you invest some time and read these 2 books:
If you want to read more about it:
Right? omg. I just finished reading "Take Off Your Pants" and I have to say, I highly recommend it. It has helped my approach to structure and made my manuscripts much tighter from the first draft, and writing is much faster with her approach. It's not revolutionary advice, and probably similar to stuff you've seen before but for some reason they way she lays it out really works for my hardcore pantser self.
https://www.amazon.com/Take-Off-Your-Pants-Outline-ebook/dp/B00UKC0GHA
>Find a copy of this book (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,
>
>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WIYCCY
>
>). It is just good practice to know how to handle worry, and even though this book has been around awhile, it is solid advice.
Thanks I will read it, I promise! Thanks a lot.
Find a copy of this book (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WIYCCY). It is just good practice to know how to handle worry, and even though this book has been around awhile, it is solid advice.
Treat it like a job and Turn Pro. What Steven Pressfield means is you treat your writing, or any other thing you do, as a professional. You show up, you do the work to the best of your ability with the time you have. Full stop. You don't get to "I just don't feel like it...I don't have the energy" with your day job unless you want to be homeless and starve. Turn Pro. I get it. I struggle with depression and lack of motivation a lot. Every day sitting down to write can almost be painful and I still can't identify what that fear is. Treat it like a job, not some drudgery that you do for a paycheck, but as a professional. You show up every day. You do the work every day to the best of your ability. And perhaps tomorrow you trash 5000 words. But that's tomorrow. You only get one shot at today. Today you Turn Pro.
It's very simple, like ~~most~~ all creative work, the ratio of submission to rejection is not 1:1, it's more 1,000:1, worse for beginners.
So, my advice is to keep on writing, submit your Op-Ed(s) to the NYT, Wall Street, WoPo etc.... each rejection you'll be 1 rejection close to getting your first work published.
If you want to read more about it and get a more formal "guidance on the process":
The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield helped me a lot with this. Take it with the grain of a salt that he's an old white boomer man and thus some of the stuff he says is privilege-blind. But I do think that at the core of it that book is as universally-applicable a code of morals as any religious text. He recommended lighting a candle and reciting the invocation to the Muse from the beginning of the Odyssey whenever you sit down to write:
>“Tell me about a complicated man.
>
>Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
>
>when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
>
>and where he went, and who he met, the pain
>
>he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
>
>he worked to save his life and bring his men
>
>back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
>
>they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
>
>kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,
>
>tell the old story for our modern times.
>
>Find the beginning.”
[tr. Emily Wilson]
I don't always light that candle when I write, but when I do, it really does put me in the zone. If you ever find any little ritual that inspires you, hold onto it, and don't listen to the voice in your head that tells you it's frivolous. Art is magic, and we need to take whatever buff spells we can to boost our MP, even if we need to invent them ourselves.
I categorized laziness as resistance. It is described in more detail in The War of Art and also in this video
You should just check his out:
https://www.amazon.com/Reader-Magnets-Platform-Marketing-Authors-ebook/dp/B00PCKIJ4C
Hey Twin! Thanks for this. Yes, you’re right. I guess it’s not just boredom but a feeling like I’m not doing enough. But pushing through. Trying to just “do” anything, even if it’s small. I think I read a few other posts of yours. I appreciate your honest check-ins. Also not sure if you’ve ever read The Artist’s Way . It’s not quit-lit, but a good change up if you’re looking for something that’s still guided and is geared toward creativity (which can definitely fill boredom gaps!), and might take your mind off just “I will not drink”. My friend has been recommending it to me for years but I only just bought it. Writing morning pages is already helpful.
This book might be a great read for someone in your situation: https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Art-Steven-Pressfield-ebook/dp/B007A4SDCG