Mr. Muse is a restless individual; he is utterly incapable of sitting still for the length of time required to create a literary work of art whether it be poetry, the next great American novel or a short story featuring the Norman conquest. Unfortunately, he’s prone to wandering off to heaven knows where, paying little attention to any resulting distress, especially if it’s the night before a deadline. Yet, when he returns all prior transgressions are forgotten in the excitement to see him again, and the cycle is likely to start all over again.
In fact, this cycle happens so often that society has given it a name: Writer’s Block.
At first glance such a lack of inspiration may look like an imposing wall that no one could possibly scale, but thankfully there is a large supply of tips and tricks to help spark creativity.
1. Go for a walk!
Get out, leave your desk, the library, wherever you’ve been sitting trying to write, just leave. Staring glassy eyed at the same space for long periods of time is not conducive to anything but procrastinating on your phone and hating the fact that your page is either entirely empty or woefully sparse of words. It’s best to try and actually go outside, but wandering around whatever building you’re in will work just as well. Look around as you walk and try to think how you can incorporate the seemingly mundane into your writing.
2. Write for 10 minutes straight.
Word vomit; get it all on the page. If you feel yourself pausing, lost for words, just write down random words or phrases, and just embrace whatever direction that takes you, who knows, maybe it’ll be a stroke of literary genius.
3. Listen to music.
The lyricless kind would be best so you won’t be tempted to sing along. This could include classical music, different genres of instrumental or my personal favorite, movie soundtrack music/trailer soundtracks. These types of songs are composed with the express purpose of eliciting some sort of response from the listener which makes them perfect for kick starting your imagination. Spotify is a good place to start for specific songs of lengthy playlists, but Yoututbe.com has videos that are hours long of such lyricless music.
4. Write about whatever is in your vicinity.
Look around you’re workspace, what do you see? A pen, some paper, maybe a pack of gum, or some sticky notes, whatever it is write about it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be prose, but write something to give yourself a jumping off point.
5. Put on some ambience.
This is the best for setting a specific mood for whatever you feel like writing. Youtube.com has some good videos you can put on loop; Ambiencemixer.com is a good alternative, you can customize your own ambience with them or use one of the ones made by other users. But the best website to use is tabletopaudio.com, the site is run by a professional composer and the ambience range from a graveyard at night, to a war zone, to a sunken temple, or a dark fantasy future.
6. Take a book or magazine and open it up to a random page.
Look at the first line of the page and use it. You can either challenge yourself to write a story around it, or use it as your first line or simply as a way to generate ideas.
7. Use a word generator.
This tip is similar to the previous one, but sometimes all that’s needed is a single word. There are a number of online generators, so google ‘word generator’ and go crazy. And if you’re really desperate you could always use a writing prompt generator but I find them normally to constraining and often cookie-cutter in nature.
There you have it. Seven useful tips for calling back the ever wandering Mr. Muse. Good luck and happy writing!