BLOCK BUSTERS

Stuck with what to do creatively? I know the feeling - creative block, whether it’s writer’s block, art block, inspiration block, whatever block - I’ve been there. It sucks to have the wind blown out of you sails. 

Elizabeth Gilbert says that ideas are fleeting and have a life of their own - they spend their time searching for someone's door to knock on, waiting for someone to give them a home. Sometimes they just don't knock at the right time. 

I’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of a bunch of thoughts and ideas I’ve had that just haven't grabbed my interest at the right moment. Maybe one of them will inspire you to keep on creating. 

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-Mermaid jesters

-What if Frankenstein were his own doctor

-What does the wind look like?

-Are animals real? Do they have their own society? What do they say about us when we’re not around?

-Speaking of animals, how strange are pets, right? Little creatures who just bum around and sleep with us.

-What is loyalty?

-Can you buy anything you want?

-What are the intrinsic morals in humanity? Are there any?

-Make a team of encouragers - people you admire who are doing what you want to do. Make a little circle of cheer and surround yourself with their pictures.

-Collect a bunch of quotes on writing and creativity. Write them and post them where you’ll see them.

-Try to think of nothing for five minutes. Tips: Ask yourself ‘I wonder what my next thought will be’ or focus on four squares in your mind’s eye. Eliminate them one by one until you’re focusing on nothing at all.

-Whatever you’re trying to create, take 5 minutes and create utter garbage. The most garbage-y garbage you can do.

-Do it again and again until you’ve gotten it all out of your system

-Then try creating again. It’s not that bad, eh?

-‘The best food in the world is in a little Chinese buffet two blocks from my house’

-Go outside.

-What is under the earth?

-How did flowers come to evolve?

-Were there cultures and people and empires before our own? How long does human history really stretch?

-Princess hair

-Plot structures of different media - shonens vs. American cartoons. Marvel vs. Gothic novels.

-The different qualities of light.

-Different types of horoscopes and fortune telling - from engrams to Chinese astrology

-‘Yes, but what’s that?’

-Make up your own.

-The colours we can’t see

-Clothing and the stories of different fabric

-Looking in to windows

-How many stars are we really looking at?

-What the hell is up with Antarctica?

-Wounds and the body’s healing process

-Mathematics vs. Everything else.

-Lets make guys the Mary Sues and deride them instead

-‘This was before he turned in to the moon.’

-Everybody is obsessed with the same thing

That’s all I’ve got for now. Maybe something grabbed your interest. Feel free to take, alter and create with any of these strange little ideas. They’d love a new home. And if you were inspired by any of these prompts - let me know! I’d love to see what you did with them!

MY DESK SETUP

Today I thought I would share my current setup for my desk.

Every year for National Novel Writing Month I get my desk re-set for the month. This year's setup is quite different from what I did last year (which was camp out at the kitchen table with a vat of tea and a warm sweater).

This year I actually HAVE a desk to write on, and I'm super excited. I've cobbled together the best setup I can imagine - the only thing I'm missing is a really good desk lamp. But I'm hoping that will come in time.

A few tips that I've learned from NANOWRIMOs past:

Keep tea as close and as filled as you can. Replenish often. 
Whether you drink coffee, tea, or just straight-up water, keep your hydration near you at all times when you're at your desk. This year I'm drinking my favourite drink - hibiscus tea mixed with organic Guyuasa. Holy yum.

Keep hydrated. Period. 
The first thing I do when I start running out of steam is hydrate. 9 times out of 10 that's all I needed to keep going. Hydration is what keeps your brain oiled up for creativity (ew, but true). When we get dehydrated our brains begin to slow down. More water is always better than less, so keep a cup of water near.

Also, snacks. 
Halloween candy is a favourite amoung NANO veterans - a couple chocolate bars can work wonders when you're in the pits of writing. But if sugar isn't your forte, fresh fruit, a few crunchy carrot sticks, some seeds and nuts, even crackers also make great in-action snacks to keep by your desk. My favourites are grapes, pumpkin seeds and pita chips. And chocolate.

Clean it up every night 
In chef-terms, this is called mise en place. Which basically translates to 'put everything where it belongs and you won't waste time trying to find it when you need it again.' Clean up after every writing spree - scoop the wrappers and pencil shavings, put your notebook back where it belongs, take stock of what you've written. Try as hard as you can to keep things, even your thoughts, organized. You'll thank yourself later.

Have a 'thought pad' 
Oftentimes we find the best details for things as we're writing. People's names, specific habits and traits - especially during NANO, we tend to come up with important details on the fly. Have a notebook handy to write down all those names, people, traits and details so you don't forget it later.

 As you can see, despite my desk still being quite a mess, I have a spot for tea, a spot for my art supplies, a little altar of inspiring people, a place for my notepads and laptop, and a big sheet of paper that I can jot down last-minute ideas (thank you, IKEA). I'm really loving my setup so far - we'll see what it looks like halfway in.

Writers - show me your desks! What are some tips and tricks you've learned through NANOWRIMO? Anything I'm forgetting? 

And, as always, happy writing!

FIND YOUR MAGNA CARTA

There is power in what you love.

Everything that interests you has meaning. Every topic, theme, design, colour, material, TV show, genre - everything you find yourself returning to again and again holds a very special, very specific place in your life. All of these things, these ideas that we can’t seem to tear ourselves away from, or things that we love desperately, are what make up our own unique creative DNA. And if you can uncover these things, if you can find the strings connecting all of them, there comes a deeper understanding of who we are, what makes us tick, and where to focus our energy.

I’ve heard this referred to as our ‘vein of gold’, our ‘magna carta’ or manifesto, our creative DNA - whatever you call it, it’s the fabric that makes up how we create, however we create. It’s the reason we find ourselves drawn to books about religious icons in the pre-1400s, or constantly reading news stories about world politics. It’s the reason we love expressionist art, and can’t seem to ‘get’ sci-fi. It’s the reason we’re drawn to the colour yellow, and can’t stop staring at the night sky. And when we look closely at all these seemingly seperate things, we can see the underlying currents that draw our attention. Perhaps the interest in early religious icons and global politics hints at a deep-rooted interest in times of change in civilizations. Or perhaps your love of the stars and expressionist art hints at your love for the infinite.

When we begin to draw these connections, we can guide our energy, we can adjust our focus, we can align our lives with the things that we love.

-BRAINSTORM-

First thing to do is sit down with a big piece of paper, or a new word document open, and just start writing. Start listing everything that you love. Try and dig deep, be specific, and try to cover every aspect of your life; That one chord that always gives you shivers. The colour gold, especially with pink. Anything with a cute face on it. Every studio ghibli movie ever. The smell after it rains. 

Also another resource: TV Tropes. Enter any specific book, show, movie, and browse through the different tropes in it. Sometimes the basic underlying structures in what we love are the real things we love. Give it a try.  

If you find yourself stuck, go through your senses, and the things you love with each of them:

Touch: fabrics you love, feelings you love, weather/seasons

Sight: Colours you love, artists you like, photographs and art styles you love

Sound: Bands you love, instruments you like, specific sounds

Smell: since smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, think of specific memories and what you love about them.

Taste: think savory food you love, desserts you’ve had, etc

And then you can go through each type of media. Start big, then narrow it down:

Book genres you love (fantasy, biographies, picture books)

Types of TV shows (crime shows, dramas, romance)

Movies you love (comedies, animated, tragedies)

News/ Blog stories you enjoy (world news, DIYs, self-help posts)

Music you listen to (rock, indie / piano-based, vocals)

-NARROW-

Got a nice, long list? Great. Now look through the list and pay special attention to your body and your heart. Read each thing you’ve written, and notice when your heart seems to flutter out of your chest. The things that send your mind whirling in to deeper thoughts. The things that make your salivate, make your hunger, the things that light a fire within you. Highlight these things (or start a new document). Start to parse the list for repeats. 

Take only the things that make you glow inside.

As you look, you’ll probably realize that you’ve got a bunch of repeats along it, too. If you find yourself repeating a lot of things that don’t make your heart swell, try and figure out why they’re on your list so much. Is it something the people around you love? (Maybe you need to include that person, if there is a specific person’s interests that keep popping up). Is it a part of something bigger, or something smaller? Maybe you’ve written a lot of modern sci-fi titles on your list, but what you really love are books that examine human nature, or feature really cool ray guns. Try to flip and turn each thing so it catches the light differently.

Try to combine and refine all the mess in to the purest forms of what you love. 
We’re not looking for lists that say things like ‘anime, heavy metal, plants’. Dig deep, as deep as you can, to get to the real things you love. Anime might turn in to ‘animated Japanese myth’.

By the time you’re done this, you should have a list of hopefully at least 20 fire-starting things from your huge brainstorm. You should have a list that makes you feel like you’re flying, bring tears to your eyes, make you feel mega-inspired.

CELEBRATE

Take this list. Decorate it. Display it. Be inspired by it. Learn from it. 

Make a big ass image of it and put it somewhere you see it every day. Have it set on your phone. Carry it with you.

Be proud that you can understand yourself a bit more, and treasure the things you love. When we are guided by what we love, when we follow the trails our hearts send us out on, we are living our lives right (I mean, as long as your loves are legal and all that. Hurting people or things, in any way, isn’t gonna work out real well. But you know that).

I would love to see what you come up with - let me know if you make one.

CREATIVE UPDATE : BULLET JOURNAL

This past month, I decided to start trying my hand at keeping a bullet journal. What is a bullet journal? There's a lot of talk of what exactly a bullet journal is. For most, it's simply a system for organizing thoughts and recording their days. More information from the original creator can be found here, too!

For me, I've decided to use mine as not only a planner, but a journal and place to put my collages as well. I'm going to list goals, thoughts, ideas, drawings, text and quotes, and any other little list I can think of. I'm SUPER excited, and my first week of using it has been SUPER satisfying so far.

 This is the modified key that I'm using. I ended up switching the ○ symbol with the ■ symbol, simply because I mostly use my journal for tasks, and my circles look nicer than my squares. The other page is blank so far, I'm hoping to make a little dedication. I'll share once it's done.

 This is my overview page for October. I haven't been using the calendar for much yet, other than marking my paydays, and any big events that have happened. I'm also keeping track of the goals I've set for the month, which I took from my quarterly goals post. Hopefully I can do them all!

 Here is my blogging schedule for October, which is already a mess (of course). I'm keeping track of the posts I've written, and then consquently posted with different colours. I've also put some blogging goals to try and meet - celebrating the little victories will make this even more fun.

 This is how I've formatted my weekly pages so far - I'm excited to see how they change through the months. So far I'm keeping track of my hours worked, the weather and temperature, any goals/events, and then a small journalling space at the end of each day. It's been a great way to see how much I've done in a week - especially helpful if the days feel like they've been flying by!

 I'm not sure what this page is going to be, yet. But I'm really liking the colours on it so far - a little snippet from an activity in the watercolour class I'm taking on Skillshare.

 Here are two little useful details I added - the results of a character strength test, as well as a diagram of the creative process - something I tuck in to every sketchbook I keep. They're handy to always remember, for me, and are the basis of almost everything I do. Little reminders are the best.

I've been following a lot of planner-focused instagrammers, and a few journalling tumblrs for inspiration, but I'd love to find more. Does anyone know any good places for journalling inspiration? Do any of you keep a planner/journal/sketchbook? Please share! I'd love to be friends!