When The Well Is Dry

Sometimes it is hard to get the creative juices flowing - and sometimes, that's because there aren't any to flow.

I'm sure everyone I know who creates stuff has been here, has known this feeling - and I am right in that position right now. Lacking the wherewithal or the oomph or whatever you want to call it to commit words to paper.

One of the worst feelings is having that itch in your fingertips, knowing what you want, knowing that you want to put your ideas down on paper - but lacking the impetus, lacking the words perhaps. Maybe lacking the guts of the actual idea, just the vague shell that it is going to occupy when it ends up in situ.

I get this a lot.

Luckily enough, I'm not relying on the writing to pay my bills. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is to maintain the impetus and continue to produce decent work when on a deadline.

There's a lot going on in the world to distract us, good and bad. Movies, music, so on, so forth. The continuous barrage of greed and cronyism seeping out of our governing institutions. Many, many things that offer distracting alternatives to ramming our heads into the same creative brick wall.

So perhaps that is the answer. Go do something else for a while. It's a suggestion I offer to people - if suffering from serious writer's block or anything similar, just get up, take a walk, listen to some music, play some video games, cleanse the proverbial palate.

What happens when you sit down afterwards and you are still dry?

Well, that's when you start thinking about why you might be lacking. What things have impacted you recently? What's got you down, what's got you stressed? Could that be something you use? Something you can work into your art, or something you can rail against? A catalyst, one way or another?

Try something new? Try making something better, different? Try a total departure from your usual modus operandi, something - as Monty Python's Flying Circus says - completely different?

What if that doesn't work?

Then I suppose we're left with half a blog, and twice as many questions as usual.

But hey, there's worse places to be.

Sorry for the weak angle, folks. Normal service next week.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.