What Do I Do When I Don’t Feel Creative?
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
We live in a world that values the grind over anything else. We are expected to be constantly productive, when studies show that most office workers are only productive for about 2 to 4 hours of their 8 hour work day. Is it because they don’t see value in the work? Probably. Is it because they’re lazy? Probably not. It’s just really hard to feel inspired to do something that isn’t really serving you. Going A and B the C of D (above and beyond the call of duty for those who never read Redwall nor have a sharp memory for the quotes of Basil Stag Hare) has not once in my entire life turned into anything other than additional stress for me. No reward, no bonus, just the reward for work well done was more work.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Working on these books, and not just the Displaced novels, but other books that I have written and either not published or can’t publish in the typical manner, is very different from working an office job. First, I don’t really make any money from it. I pour money in, and get next to nothing out… wait… this is like my teaching job in that way… but I digress. This is work that I do purely for the enjoyment of it. I get out a sense of personal accomplishment more than any monetary gain. Now, I would love to get some monetary gain out of it, specifically enough to at least break even with it, but the books are being published and released to the world because I have been telling this story for almost a decade and I want to share it with the world and people who would appreciate it.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
That being said, I’ve written a lot lately about how the burnout of existence is making it difficult for people these days to be able to enjoy the things we love. Families are stretched thin, being able to throw money at side projects is a luxury, and survival is nowhere near guaranteed. So, with these thoughts in mind, how can I get myself to be creative when the joy of it has been sucked out of my existence from a week of grueling manual labor and financial stress?
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
1. Don’t Force It
Much like the Spongebob episode where he needs to write an essay on what he learned in boating school, sometimes I’ve seen creatives sit down at the computer or with a notepad and try to just force an idea out of their head. Just praying for something good to come out of your pencil or fingertips is never going to work. In this instance, creativity is like taking a dump, if you force it, you’re just going to hurt yourself.
Creativity is a process, and while we sometimes need to force ourselves to get work done, it's hard to think of the creative process as work. Eventually, it all just comes flowing out of you because it’s there, it just needs to slide out when it's ready. Spread sheets and proposals aren’t creative work, they can be forced out, because they’re data driven and soulless. Your art isn’t. So when you’re trying to work on something creative, and it just isn’t coming to you, I’ll give you the same advice I give myself and the people I love: start working on it, and if after ten or so minutes, you still don’t feel inspired, put it down and do something else. You may not get anything done with it, but you weren’t going to anyway.
Also, remember:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
2. Exposure Therapy
Well, what am I supposed to do if I walk away? The dishes? Vacuum? My taxes? Any of these are good things to get done, since if you’re like me you put them off as long as possible because they do not bring joy either, but if you’re trying to get your creative juices flowing, they’re probably not your best bets. Pick a show you love, or a book you have been meaning to read, and sit down to consume the creativity of another. Oftentimes, you’ll experience something you love or something inspirational, and you’ll feel that release from the chains that held you back, and you can put it down, return to your creative endeavor, and tackle it with a newfound vigor.
I have found that my inner thoughts and even writer’s voice can be influenced by what I’m watching or reading at the time. One problem I’ve had is being dissatisfied with what I’ve been creating due to a complete lack of it being any good. I’ll discover that something has tainted my thinking or my writing style, and so I’ll need to reset it. Rereading good works rather than the internet and now AI slop, can help rebalance your brain into creating things of value because you’re feeding it things of value. Remember, garbage in, garbage out. Maybe you just need to go on a mind cleanse rather than do anything mind numbing.
Just remember:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
3. Do Something Else That Ignites Joy
Media consumption isn’t always the answer. It is our natural go to considering it’s right there in your pocket or sitting on the desk in front of you, and ease often wins out over efficient, simply because we don’t have the energy, or think we don’t have the energy to do something that would be more beneficial to us. I cannot express how many times I’ve felt down and uninspired, only to flip through reel after reel on Instagram, slowly watching the time disappear and my will to create die in real time.
Then, one day, I chose to go for a hike, or a long walk on a green trail, or go to the farmers market, or a botanical garden, or anywhere else that wasn’t inside my apartment or at work, and wasn’t going to cost me a billion dollars just to exist there, and instantly, I feel life surge through my mind, my inspiration sparked, and I find myself wanting to go work on a story or develop more in the game, and now that I’m not thinking about trying to get inspired, I suddenly find inspiration. A lot of people will say “go out and touch grass” as an insult to people these days, but honestly, it’s probably one of the healthiest things you can do. Go out, and interact with the world you’re trying to draw inspiration from. You’re not going to get it from a screen. You’re going to get it from the world.
And while you’re out there, don’t forget:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
4. Find Some Freaking Peace
Social media is addictive. The world is burning (along with over 130 warehouses). We have a cohort of moronic pedofiles in power, WWIII on the horizon, and everyone ready to fight back against it seems to have gone in for the buy one get one free special on neuterings considering they don’t have the balls to do anything about it. The world is a fucking dumpster fire and art is supposed to be our way of dealing with it, either through escaping the fire long enough to find a modicum of peace in the world, or as a way to hold up a mirror to it in such a way that will finally get your stubborn Uncle to admit that treating people who are different as lesser is wrong, even if he only gets it if there’s a hot alien woman as the form of representation.
But just as your art is meant to bring you peace, there needs to be peace in you for you to bring it to others. Killing yourself to create-create-create is just going to burn you out and destroy any peace your work will bring. Either it will be slapshod quality and people won’t enjoy it, or you’ll despise it, or your work will become tainted by the strain you’re putting on yourself and start taking on the frustrations of your current moment. Fighting with your spouse or significant other? Your frustration with them may create a sense of misogyny or misandry in your work you didn’t intend. Angry at your boss? Your work may now just have a familiar looking character being thrown out of an office window when you were trying to write a nice little romance story. Been watching the news?
Why would you do that to yourself? Are you okay? Listen, just… just take a break. No news is good news right now. Just… just take a breath and do something else. Anything else.
What you need to focus on is centering yourself so that you’re at peace with the world you find yourself in. Sometimes, that looks like writing a short story about a man getting so frustrated with his boss that he throws the guy out a window, but that can be something you write for catharsis, not as part of your actual story. Get it out, get it gone, and get yourself where you want to be. Only then, should you even attempt to create.
And of course, remember:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
5. Revisit Your Old Work
Okay, I know this is the scary one. The one no one wants to do because… shudder... We've all read our old work and remember how cringy and bad it is. Well tough, you thought it was good enough to make at one point, and maybe you’ve gotten better since then, or maybe you feel you’ve never made anything that lives up to your old work since, but in the end, that is your art. That is part of you. And when you can’t seem to find yourself or find the ability to create for yourself, sometimes grabbing hold of something that is physically, unabashedly you is everything you need to get back to making something that truly represents who you are now, even if you don’t know who that person is.
I’ve written a few books that are “published” or were at one point, that are absolute trash. I hate what they are because I know the current me could do better. Well the current me has had nearly twenty years of experience over the me that first wrote those books. Of course I could do it better now. The question is… how could I do it better now? I’ll sit down with old stories or old chapters, and just… edit. I’ll look at things I wrote, laugh at jokes I made, sigh and roll my eyes as I fix mistakes I didn’t catch back then, and soon enough I find myself wanting to make something better, or recapture the skill that I was showing in that moment. Soon I find myself working on a different project, one that I’m building on rather than reflecting on, and that gives me new work to share, or new work to reflect on in the future if I’m ever feeling like I just can’t create today.
Look back and reflect:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Creativity is being squashed down in our world by people who think we should be using our time to make more money (usually for them rather than for our benefit), who think we need to monetize our joy (which I suppose I’m kind of doing, but really it’s the sharing of the story I enjoy, making the money would be an added bonus), or who believe that to create is just to waste time. Humans were born to create. We exist to make. And sometimes, what we make neither stands the test of time or the test of public opinion, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to create just because it's something you want to do. You’re allowed to share what you made and be proud of it, even if there’s someone on the internet who can do it better than you (because there’s always someone out there who can do it better than you). You don’t sing in the car or the shower because you’re trying to win an Emmy, you sing for the joy of it. Create for the same reasons.
And, as always, remember:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
