When it comes to writer’s block, Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, Jason Isbell, is fond of saying “it doesn’t exist.” In the last six years, he has recorded three albums and contributed to countless collaborative projects. How has he maintained such a high creative output? It’s easier when a melody is running through you head? Maybe. Or, it’s because as he says, “I think that’s just laziness. You can go through periods where you don’t like what you’re working on, but if you just keep working that will change.”
Therein lies a secret hidden in plain sight. Even when the inkwell feels low, keep writing, but it may take shifting your focus to something besides your primary project. The change in focus and style will not only rejuvenate your creative juices, it will allow you to enhance your craft at the same time.
My daily writing is sports journalism. I produce a daily output of game stories, analysis, previews, and the occasional feature. I also write creative nonfiction and fiction in my spare time. Vacillating between the two keeps me from running low in creativity because I always have a new subject to write about.
When I write about sports, the subjects are already chosen. I don’t spend my creative energies on making choices for their motivations or how it affects the plot. I write about the event in the template of a game story, but I play with the perspective, the voice, and the diction. It’s a new sandbox to play in while sharpening my writing skills.
Sports writing can be mundane. Other journos look down on it because it’s not prestigious like investigate or political journalism. But it doesn’t have to be. Grantland Rice, Dan Jenkins, and more recently, Wright Thompson, wrote with vivid imagery and biting humor. It’s a great medium to explore your creativity without having to develop stories whole cloth.
Which mediums could you write for that require a different type of writing? A company newsletter, a local paper, a writing contest in an unfamiliar genre?
As writing has moved away from print and into the digital space, there is an increased need for #content. Websites need more writers, more voices and styles. It provides great experience and rest from your primary subject and style. It may also inform your own creative writing.
When I sit down to craft a fiction story, I utilize the tools I honed working on shorter articles and can focus on the characters I want to create. Additionally, the variety of subjects I covered gives me fodder for my fiction. I lift or make composites of characters’ attributes and motivations or stories’ plot points. Then I write until I’m drained, still able to go back to sports writing where the creative burden is different.
I’m reminded of when I was a track coach. An athlete cannot train the same way every day. Training schedules have to complement each other so each day the athlete is getting a workout and getting rest. The same goes for writing.
To keep the creativity from running out, find different subjects to write about. When you feel a writer’s block, choose an exercise of different subject or genre and allow your mind to rest on your primary story. Ideally, you won’t have to create each character, and when you write you will be able to refine other aspects of your writing. Moving back and forth between projects will keep you from burning out on one and make you a more productive and creative writer.
Jane McLean
Yes, yes, yes! Very important for an artist [I specialize in fiber] to have projects in different media–you explain the cross-creative process very well. When I teach senior citizens ‘Telling Your Family Stories,’ I tell them “Read the sports pages in the ‘Boston Globe’ for examples of good writing. You don’t have to love the Sox, but see how the writer livens up a subject we already know everything about.”