I woke up in the middle of the night last night and I couldn't fall back asleep. There was a conversation I had earlier yesterday that had my brain spinning and I was trying to think of solutions. This conversation was in no way negative, it was one where I just wanted to find a way to help.
It was about finding your creativity. As an all around creative person, I know just how tough it is to hit a mental block. I've had a year go by where I couldn't write a single song and it depressed me beyond belief. I'd even sit down, try to write a few phrases, and then realize they meant absolutely nothing to me.
One day, I don't know how I realized my cure, but I did. After many stressful months of changes in my life and me trying to shrug it all off and "get through it", I closed my eyes. I let myself feel the struggles that I was trying so hard to mask. Suddenly, a flood of songs came to me within days. It's like I couldn't stop. Happy feelings. Sad feelings. Fearful feelings. Loving feelings. They were all there again and the second I let the words hit the paper, I could feel the thoughts I had kept bottled inside of me for months leaving me. Once the songs were complete and I sang them repeatedly, I ended up with closure.
At the end of the day, I realized. Creativity has nothing to do with anyone else. Creativity is personal and it's private and it's something you do for you. If you eventually choose to share it with others, you do. But there shouldn't be any pressure to do so. First and foremost, you have to do it for you, and the only way to do that is use your creativity like your own personal diary.
The fact is, every book, song, or painting is every creators own personal diary. And yet, through months of struggling with my own emotions, I found comfort in singing other people's songs. Trying to relate to what they were singing about. The honest truth though is, nothing other than your own art will "cure" you. Because even if you love a song, a story, or a character, and it makes perfect sense to you, at the end of the day, you can still shrug it off as someone else. Yet when you create it, when you write it, there's no one else it stems from but you.
So, here's my advice. If you're going through a creative block right now, I want you to close your eyes. Picture that little box inside of you that holds your emotions. Take a key, unlock it, and let your emotions come out. If you're a writer, write about it. Start your novel by creating a character that feels what you feel, thinks what you think, fears what you fear, experiences what you've experienced. Even if you can't think of how to begin the story, begin your prologue with your character talking about their own writer's block. Their own fear to let their emotions loose. Begin from there and let your feelings guide you. Don't worry about the imperfections in the story, the chapters that you skip, write from where you can and write from what you know. Don't plan to show your story to anyone. Let it be personal and don't be afraid to let this character express everything you feel.
My go to first phrase as a songwriter when I'm struggling to find the words is, "Today, I woke up". Whether I write it into my song or not, I begin from that place, because for me, my feelings and emotions are always in the front of my mind when I awake. As the day progresses, a million distractions come my way but if I think back to how I felt when I opened my eyes and what was on my mind, I can always work from there.
The fact is, once your emotions are free, it's easier to write, sing, paint, etc. about anything else. Every story, even the fantasy stories people write are somewhere based on their feelings, thoughts, and experiences. But to get there and write a story that you or anyone else can connect with, you first have to deal with your reality and discover your own emotions.
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