Sparking Your Creativity

Sparking Your Creativity by Linda Rodriguez (originally published June 2017)

As an artist and creative person, I can experience times when I reach down for ideas, for creative excitement, for images, and come up temporarily empty. These have usually been times that have combined lots of creative overwork and lots of business work—taxes, promotion, correspondence, contracts, freelance editing, etc. This kind of emptiness and feeling creatively dry can be terrifying, but I’m now used to it, and I know what to do to refill the well and spark new creativity. In these circumstances, it’s necessary to take time to do things to build up new creativity energy within you. So here are ten ideas to get you started.

Journal Writing—This is the backbone of the creative life, especially for writers. I’m not necessarily talking about a daily diary. This is a notebook in which you write about what you see and hear, turning it into dialogue or sensory description. This is where you can work with writing prompts from books, workshops, tapes, and DVDs, your version of the pianist’s daily scales. Set a kitchen timer for a few minutes and do some freewriting to unload some of the chattering of your surface mind and move into deeper ideas.

Read Poetry—I’m a poet, as well as a novelist, but I’ve been surprised by how many commercially successful novelists I’ve met who say they regularly or occasionally read poetry as a springboard for their writing. It actually makes great sense because the poet deals in imagery, which is the language of the right (creative) brain.  I know that, whenever I read poetry, it sets my mind whirling with tons of ideas and images. I have come up with ideas for entire novels from reading a poem.

Read Something Very Different for You—If you always read and write poetry, check out a popular novel. If you’re a mystery reader, take a look at what science fiction writers are coming up with. If you read and write literary fiction, pick up a romance novel. Jog your mind from its habitual ruts of thinking and imagining. Stretch out of your comfort zone. Even if you don’t like what you read, it should still shake up your mind enough to start generating ideas, images, and characters.

Singlehanded Brainstorming—Most of us have been taught how to do and forced to sit through group brainstorming sessions before. Take those techniques and a sheet of paper with pen (or iPad or laptop), get comfortable, set a timer again, and start throwing out ideas at top speed. Same rules as with the group process. You can’t disqualify any idea, no matter how unrealistic. You want to generate as many ideas as you can as quickly as you can. Just list them down the page—or even use a voice recorder to capture them.  After the timer goes off, you can go down the list considering the possibilities you’ve listed. Look for possibilities to combine aspects of ideas. Write down any new ideas that get sparked by your consideration of the ideas already down on the page. Choose one or two promising (or least abhorrent) ideas and freewrite about them in your journal.

Making Lists—I love listmaking. Make lists of ideas, of characters, of backgrounds you’d like to use someday, of isolated bits of dialogue or description, of actions you’d like to see a character to take. My favorite is to write a list of scenes I’d like to read—exciting scenes, action-filled scenes, emotional scenes, surprising scenes, suspenseful scenes. They don’t have to have anything to do with any project you’re working on or any character you are writing or have written. They just need to be scenes you’d love to read—because scenes you’d love to read are scenes you’d love to write.

Visit a Museum, Gallery, Play, Film, Concert—We writers live and breathe words. Sometimes we need to get out of our heads and see or hear art that isn’t primarily word-based. It can be especially fruitful to go to a film in a language you don’t understand or an art exhibit of a kind you know nothing about. When we have no words to use to explain or understand what we’re seeing, our brains are kicked into another mode of functioning that can become quite generative. Wander around a gallery or museum and take in the colors and shapes. Sit in a concert hall or movie theater and let the music or film engulf you completely, washing through your brain. Come out seeing or hearing in a slightly different mode.

Draw, Paint, Knit, Spin, Sew—Even better than looking at art is making it. Sink your hands into clay or fiber. Splash ten different colors next to each other, taking note of the changes each new color creates. Feel the texture of the fabric, thread, yarn, fiber as you work with it to make something new. Take a penciled line and see what you can create with it. All of this also kicks in the right brain, the imagistic, creative part of us. Stay in beginner mind without worrying how “good” your art will be. This is—and should be—play, completely carefree and innocent.

Go for a Walk—Physical exercise is always a good thing for us sedentary word slugs, but even more important than its many health benefits are the creative benefits of simply moving your body through space. As you move around, your brain begins to get unstuck and to move, as well. A nice, long walk outdoors (preferably in scenic surroundings) can often jumpstart the solution to a creative dry spell. Sometimes a sterile period can arise from being overstressed. Walks are one of the best ways to counter such stress and relax the mind and body.

Arrange Flowers/Rearrange Some Belongings—In the Chinese art of feng shui, rearranging 27 items will start stuck soul energy flowing again. Moving belongings into new configurations, trying for a more pleasing pattern, has long been a cure for the blues and the blahs. We are pattern-recognizing and pattern-creating organisms. To change the habitual patterns that surround us charges us with new energy.  A smaller, simpler version of this is to gather or buy some flowers and assemble them into flower arrangements that please our aesthetic sensibilities. Spending a little time in creating pleasing, artistic arrangements of flowers or accessories will provide a creative boost to stuck energies.

Go to Lunch with a Creative Friend or Two—Everyone has one or more friends or acquaintances who are creative sparklers. Like the child’s fireworks favorite, they give off showers of sparks, or creative ideas, constantly. They are positive and upbeat and always focused on possibilities. Spending some time with them will leave you filled with ideas, energy, and excitement. It’s always worthwhile to give them a call and set up a relaxed lunch in a nice place. Rather than complain about how dry and sterile things are for you right at the moment, ask them what’s new with them and what they see as possibilities for the future.  As they take off shooting into the blue yonder, follow them wholeheartedly and build on all their ideas. You’ll walk away at the end of lunch with a big smile on your face and a bunch of ideas bubbling in your unconscious. Cherish these friends, even if they are unrealistic and immature. Their wild, creative energy is invaluable when your own has temporarily deserted you.

One or more of these ten methods should start your creative powers working once again. I’ve never had to go through more than a couple of these at a time to get my creative mojo stirring. Post this list near your desk, and don’t spend any time or energy bewailing it when a creative dry spell hits. Just reach for this and try whichever of these ideas looks most appealing at the time. If the first doesn’t completely prime your creative pump, move to another of them. Creativity never leaves, but sometimes it needs a spark to start the engine running again. So spark your creativity!

Hitting Delete

This path—writing—it’s not linear. Sometimes the way forward is shrouded in mist. Sometimes a fork appears out of nowhere. And, sometimes, I follow the wrong trail.

It would be nice if I realized the wrongness of the trail right away. I’m not that lucky.

And so, I recently tossed most of a book.

I won’t go into the angst that went into that decision or the number of days I spent looking for something to salvage. In the end, the wrong path is the wrong path.

Today, I thought I’d share with you what the wrong path (in all its unedited glory) looks like…

Maybe Grace liked the sunny yellow hats and coats. Maybe she liked the symmetry of twelve little girls in two straight lines. Maybe she related to a distant, doting father. For whatever reason, my daughter’s favorite book, since the time she was old enough to turn the pages, was Madeline.

            I liked Miss Clavel, the woman tasked with the thankless job of keeping order.

            I was definitely channeling Miss Clavel when I opened my eyes in the darkness. An uneasy feeling had pulled me from a sound sleep. Something was not right!

            My feet were on the carpet and I was halfway across the bedroom before I remembered Grace was spending the night with her friend, Peggy.

            “Yarg.”

            I’d awakened Max and he was yawning.

            “Should I call?”

            “Yarg.”

            “I think I should call.”

            Max settled his head back onto his paws. He had no opinion.

            I glanced back at the clock radio on my bedside table. The numbers glowed a soft yellow.

            I dithered. It was too late—or too early—to call. I was being ridiculous.

Something was not right.

I picked up the receiver and dialed.

            “Hello.” Blythe was talking but she was at least half-asleep—at least her voice was.

            “Blythe, it’s Ellison Russell. I am sorry to call at this hour, but I have the most horrible feeling something has happened. Are the girls all right?”

            “How would I know?” Blythe sounded noticeably more awake.

            “They’re at your house.”

            “No.” She was fully awake now. “They’re at yours.”

            My stomach lurched. “They went to a concert and Grace assured me they’d be back at your house by half past twelve.”

            “They went to a movie and are spending the night with you.”

            My stomach tied itself in a complicated, painful knot. “I’ll call you back.”

            I dropped the phone in the cradle and flew down the hall to Grace’s room—Grace’s empty room. With Max at my heels, I descended the back stairs, raced to the family room, and flipped on the lights.

            Grace wasn’t there either. A choking fear took hold of my throat, cutting off the supply of air to my lungs.

            Brnng, brnng.

            I lunged for the phone. “Hello.”

            “Mrs. Russell?” asked a stranger’s voice.

            “Yes,” I croaked. “This is she.”

            “My name is Mary Jansen. I’m calling from St. Mark’s.”

            The hospital. My knees crumpled and I slid to the floor. “What’s happened?”

            “You need to come.”

            “What’s happened? Is Grace all right?”

            I waited. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. I prayed with every cell in my body. Please, let her be all right.

            “She’s fine but we had to give her a sedative.”

            “A sedative?”

            “She was hysterical.”

            Grace didn’t get hysterical. “Why?”

            “Her friend—”

            “Peggy?”

            “No. Her friend, Debbie. She found her—”

            She found her? I’d found enough dead bodies to know what came next. “I’m on my way.”

            I hung up. I should have asked what happened to Debbie. I should have called Blythe. I should have checked on Peggy. But panic pushed those thoughts from my mind until I was in the car, speeding down dark streets toward the hospital.

            I parked in the Emergency Room lot and exploded through the doors.

            The waiting room was dotted with people who were so sick they’d ventured out at two in the morning. I felt their pained gazes settle on me as I ran to the check-in desk. “I’m here about my daughter, Grace Russell. Where is she?”

            A woman with tired eyes looked up from some paperwork. “If you’ll have a seat, I’ll check with doctor.”

            There was no way I could quietly wait. Not for so much as a second. I had to see Grace, whole and unhurt, right away. “I can’t wait.”

She peered over the top of her glasses at the half-full waiting room. “It won’t be long.”

            I didn’t know the woman sitting behind the desk. She didn’t know me. It was time for the big guns.

            “My mother is Frances Walford, she’s the chairman of the hospital’s board of trustees—”

            The poor woman paled.

            “I don’t want to call her—” that was the understatement of the decade “—but I will. I need to see my daughter. This instant.”

            The woman stared at me as if she couldn’t quite believe Frances Walford’s daughter would fly into the hospital in the middle of the night, her hair an unholy mess, her limbs covered in paint-splattered blue jeans and a wrinkled shirt. Mother was always perfectly turned out.

            The woman stared an instant too long.

            I reached for the phone. “Nine for an outside line?”

            That got her moving. “This way, Mrs. Russell.”

            Ignoring the resentful gazes of those still waiting, I followed her into the Emergency Room.

            She led me past bustling nurses and slow-moving doctors to a waxed curtain the color of old oatmeal. A uniformed police officer pushed out of a chair positioned next to it.

A police officer? The blood raced away from my head in a giant whoosh and remaining upright was suddenly a challenge. “What happened?”

“You’re Mrs. Russell?” he asked.

“Yes. What happened to my daughter?” I reached for the curtain.

He reached too. “If we could talk a moment—”

“After I see Grace.” I yanked back the curtain.

Grace lay on the hospital bed with a blanket drawn up to her chin. Her eyes were closed and she snored softly. I breathed my first real breath since I’d called Blythe. Grace was all right. Unharmed. Alive. And I was going to kill her.

Now I turned to the police officer. “What is going on?”

He shifted his weight and frowned. “Your daughter and a few of her friends snuck into a bar.”

“A bar?” I was definitely going to kill her.

“Have you heard of Dirty Sally’s?”

Did I look like the kind of woman who frequented a place called Dirty Sally’s? I smoothed my messy hair. “No.”

“The girls say they went to listen to a band.”

Grace was as good as dead. And grounded. And she was never, ever spending the night at a friend’s house again. She’d be putting her dead, grounded-for-life head on her own pillow every night until she went to college. “How did they get from the bar to the hospital?”

“One of the girls your daughter was with got herself into some trouble.”

“Debbie Clayton.” It figured. Of all Grace’s friends, Debbie was the flightiest. “Is she all right?”

“Your daughter found her in the alley behind the bar.” The expression on his face was as serious as the punishments I planned for Grace.

Found her? I tightened my hands into fists. “What happened to Debbie?”

“The doctors are with her now.”

At least she wasn’t dead. I sank onto an empty chair. “What happened?”

A ruddy hue stained his cheeks. “Your daughter says Miss Clayton was raped.”

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders and the Poppy Fields Adventures (book three, Fields' Guide to Voodoo, releases February 28th).

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean--and she's got an active imagination. Truth is--she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.