

Asking Artists: How Do You Overcome Creative Block? - jaybol
http://blog.iso50.com/2010/02/10/overcoming-creative-block/

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mootothemax
I remember when I studied music and regularly had to compose, well,
_anything_. I found the best mix was to take some time away, go for a walk, a
meal, a drink, _anything_ , and then equally to sit down and compose
_anything_ no matter how awful.

Clearing my head and then forcing myself to work turned out to be about the
only thing that regularly fixed creative block for me.

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TobiasCassell
Bring up Amazon in another window and order Steven Pressfield's "War of Art"
and just for kicks add Hugh Macleod's "Ignore Everybody"... The latter will
put a spotlight on the counter-productive external forces at play that is
causing you to grind to a halt. The former will so deliberately and decisively
shame you out of your so-called 'writers block' that you will have no choice
but to snap out of it...

(Edit) Both books are about creativity. I used writers block in my post
because writing is a common profession in the Arts. One book is written by an
Artist, the other a writer- and in my opinion, both books will be helpful to
any Artist. Including, of course, the Art of programming language..

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raimondious
I've never found anything better than a break from thinking about the subject
at hand plus a long hard run. Something about the monotony and the exertion
clears your head and lets creativity flow better.

Here's something I thought of while on a treadmill
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/miura-ori/496920874>

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Dylanfm
When I was studying art, sometimes when I hit a block I'd choose to do what I
thought I shouldn't do. It helped free me up a bit. Sometimes when things are
going well it's nerve-racking - you could stuff it up. Making a small,
intentional step in the wrong direction was liberating and came with mixed,
but often good, results.

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msg
Writer's block is caused by lack of information.

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eru
Anything to support that? What if you want to write fiction?

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Qz
Simple: you don't have the information about what to write next.

As a part-time fiction writer, I generally find the problem is about
visualization. I may know _what_ I want to write next, but if I can't _see_
it, then I can't write it. But not everyone writes visually in the way I do. I
find the best way to break past that is to go somewhere interesting, and then
imagine my characters in a similarly interesting place.

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ivanzhao
looking to the past.

