Five Ways to boost your creativity
Have you ever had one of those days (or even weeks or months!) when your creative powers seem to evaporate and you sit staring at a blank page or laptop screen wondering why every word you write sounds tired and flat.
Maybe it’s time for a writer reboot! Instead of waiting for the Muse to strike, focus on nurturing your creative spark and bring it back to life. The more you do things that flex your creative muscle, the more you will develop your creative abilities and avoid the dreaded writer’s block.
Here are five quick tips to fire up your imagination and get your creative juices flowing!
Observation
Paying attention to your surroundings is a great way to improve your creative abilities. Develop the habit of noticing what’s going on around you – use all five senses to observe what you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. What are people around you doing? What kind of environment are you in? Is it familiar to you or are you exploring somewhere new?
Record your observations in a notebook – listen out for snippets of overheard conversations, note down people’s mannerisms and body language, or describe an object or location in detail. Develop your descriptive vocabulary – instead of just observing that someone’s backpack is blue, think about the specific tone and shade. Is it French Navy, aquamarine, sapphire, sky blue or periwinkle? How could elevating the descriptive details reveal more about the personality of a character in your writing?
Practice and hone your observational skills and write about the small things you notice that others might miss. Think about the things your eye is naturally drawn to? Is it colour, shape, texture, sound, smell? Do you walk around with your eyes on the ground in front of you, or do you look up and notice architectural details, a bird flying overhead or the details in an advertising hoarding on the side of a building?
Paying attention to what interests you helps define and develop your preferences and allows your unique voice to shine through in your writing.
Keep a creative journal
Having a dedicated place to capture your ideas is a great way to train your brain to have even more ideas! You can also use your journal to keep track of your creative process and reflect on what you accomplish each day or week as you develop your writing projects.
You don’t have to limit yourself to just writing in your journal. Use visual elements like postcards, sketches or doodles to stimulate your imagination, ephemera like event or exhibition tickets or photos of your travels with a few notes to help you recall the details afterwards.
Collage is another medium that’s perfect for your journal – there’s something about deconstructing and reconstructing images that can help unlock your creativity when you’re feeling stuck. So get the scissors and glue sticks out, raid the recycling bin for some old magazines and see what you can come up with!
Try something new
When was the last time you did something for the first time? We’re often taught to fear failure, but if you want to develop your creativity you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable (or even incompetent) as you try out new things.
Our brains love novelty, but new doesn’t have to mean complicated; it could be something simple like checking out a new recipe, or a longer term project like a photography course or learning a new language if you want to be more ambitious.
Creativity is about taking risks and exploring the unknown, which in turn builds your skills and develops your self-confidence. It’s ok to be bad at something when you start out, and it can lead you to discover talents you didn’t know you had.
Focus on the process rather than the outcome. What are you discovering? How do any new skills complement your current skills? What do you enjoy the most about this new activity? Are there things you don’t like, or are there things about the subject you want to learn more about? Allow yourself to become absorbed in something that interests you and will spark your imagination and curiosity.
Use a mind map for your creative projects
If you’re feeling stuck with your current work-in-progress, mind mapping is a fun way to get your ideas out of your head and onto the page where you can see them more clearly. It’s also a great tool if you’re feeling stuck with your writing and need to spot any gaps in your plot or spark new ideas for your story.
Simply write down your central topic or theme in the centre of a sheet of paper, then link your related ideas around the central word to create a visual map of how they’re are connected. Using different coloured pens for different elements can help you identify related ideas and develop them further.
Mind mapping is a great way to plan a non-fiction project but can also be used to capture any random notes, snippets or ideas in one place that might reveal an unexpected theme or trigger an idea for a short story, poem or even a novel.
Bring creativity into your environment
Creativity doesn’t always have to be something we produce from within ourselves, it can also be how we organise, nurture and explore our environment.
Adding a vase of fresh flowers to your desk, lighting a scented candle while you work, listening to uplifting music or treating yourself to a new notebook are simple ways to inspire your imagination and reignite your creative spark.
If you’ve read Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, you’ll be familiar with the concept of taking yourself on an Artists Date. The idea is to set aside some time every week to do something fun and enjoyable on your own that nurtures your creativity and inspires your inner artist.
Try exploring a new neighbourhood, rummage through an antique market or thrift store, visit an independent bookshop, try out a creative workshop or buy a matinee ticket for your local theatre or independent cinema. An Artist Date doesn’t have to be a huge investment of time or money but you’ll soon see a shift in your writing when you make it part of your regular creative practice.
What could you try today to revv your creative engine and bring a bit of play into your day?
