How to Overcome a Creative Impasse

There are many problems that can hamper the creative mind. Of course I have not encountered them all - they are dependent on your personality type - but I have encountered many and can advise on how to overcome them.

A creative impasse can also mean that you don’t have a project, because you simply don’t have any ideas for projects. In this text I will assume that you do have a project and have run into an impasse while working on it.

There are three types of impasse:

• Stage Fright

• Writer’s Block

• Engineer’s Dilemma

Stage Fright can, itself, be the cause of Writer’s Block. Both tend to occur when you are “outside” the work, whereas Engineer’s Dilemma occurs when you are very much “inside” the work and run into a problem that is in the work itself.

I will advise numerous times to “create a txt file”. On Windows, the program to use for this is Notepad. Plain text (no bolding, underline, italics, etc.) forces you to work with the ideas and prevents you getting lost in formatting, decoration, presentation, emphasis, etc. This is a very good habit for a creative person to develop.

One thing that is very important, at least for me, is to be free of things that cause stress. Try to clear away anything like that. Get things over with and out of the way so that they won’t be at the back of your mind, bothering you. If there is a bill that needs paying and you can afford to pay it, just pay it. If the vacuuming needs done because guests are coming next week, maybe just get it done now so that it isn’t preying on you. If the dishes need done, just do them. These are the tedious things that you don’t want to do but, as long as they remain undone, might well hamper the creative work that does engage you. The small time it takes to clear such obstacles away will be well worth it, trust me.

Distractions should also be eliminated. If the door tends to annoyingly open and bang shut every 20 seconds, jam it with an old boot. If flatmates or relatives have an infuriating habit of just sauntering in to drivel about the weather while you’re trying to work, politely tell them to stop doing that because you need to concentrate. People usually understand.

I also advise to make use of ambient soundtracks on YouTube. They are peaceful yet stimulating. This one has got me through writing quite a few essays.

Stage Fright: insecurity

This occurs when you feel great pressure from outside. You worry what other people will think of your work. This can strike before or after you have made a lot of choices about the work, casting past choices into doubt and paralysing your ability to make new ones.

Accept that you will never please everyone. You could agonise for years and still what you make will displease someone - I guarantee this. Therefore, don’t care so much what other people think. Use them for “market research” now and then, but nothing more. Your own conscience, and your own sense of taste, should be your guide. This is especially true if you are over 25.

The key thing here is to realise that, if caring what other people think is paralysing you, then caring what other people think has become bad for you, so you should stop it.

Stage Fright: perfectionism

This is great pressure from inside. You fall into thinking that only your best is acceptable.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. Accept that it’s going to happen. It really doesn’t matter that much.

If what you make this month is less good than what you made last month… so what…? Really think about it. So what…? You’ll have another peak some time in the future. And you’ll have more troughs in the future as well. Allow yourself this.

There’s also the fact that, if you make something bad, you can always improve it in the future. Maybe you first need to make this “mistake”, this crap version of it, so that the good version can emerge?

The key thing is to keep going, keep developing, and don’t try to plan too much. Your future projects will surprise you, and so will your own evolution.

In short: don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”.

Writer’s Block: excess of options

Sometimes it’s nice to have a brief, a goal laid down by other people which you need to achieve. This eliminates “the agony of choice”, which can be a very real problem. Too many options and you don’t know which to run with, which to integrate tangentially, and which to ignore entirely.

Create a txt file and write down all the options. Make notes next to each one about its plusses and minuses. Everything should be there in front of you. The “process” is not counting up the plusses and minuses to identify which option has the most plusses. It is methodically finding out which option is the best despite its minuses. That can only be seen once you have really analysed it all - and that is best done by having it in black and white in front of you.

Also bear in mind that you don’t necessarily have to boil it down to just one of the options. Your other favourites can always be done in the future.

Writer’s Block: paucity of options

This is simply when you just don’t know what to do because you can’t think of anything. You have no “leads”.

Learn something new about the topic. Read articles about it or about things related to it. This is the opposite of being hyper-focused on the work: it is being not very focused at all and just surveying the territory to see what becomes apparent.

Distract yourself and seek random stimulation:

• call a friend (and ask about them and their problems just as much as, or more than, talking about your impasse)

• go for a walk

• watch a film

• most of all, relax.

Read what other people have written about the topic. Probably, this will give you some “way in” that gets you started.

Record an audio of yourself talking about the topic. Imagine that someone is interviewing you so you just have to talk about the topic, in an improvised and messy way. By the time you have finished, you will probably have solved the problem.

One other reason you might encounter “a paucity of options” is that you are approaching the challenge in the wrong manner. This could manifest in various ways but the one I will illustrate here is the question of structure. Structure is extremely important not just for the reader/consumer/viewer, but also for the creator. In writing essays, sometimes the reason I can’t make progress is that I have given the essay the wrong structure; I have chosen the wrong chapter titles or not split up a particular chapter, or have misjudged and am trying to write separately about two things that actually should be handled together. I cannot emphasise enough how important structure is. For any challenge, how you structure your response will be key to how successful it is.

Engineer’s Dilemma

This is when the impasse is that you don’t know how to proceed or how to fix a problem.

All of the solutions to “paucity of options” are relevant here. Learn random stuff about the subject, talk to a friend, seek random stimulation. Create a txt file and write down all the options. It is far better to have it all in front of you, in black and white, than buzzing around in your head and overwhelming you, and possibly disintegrating as time passes.

One solution to a problematic section that you don’t know how to fix is to simply delete it. Always bear that in mind. It’s avoiding the problem, but it’s also solving the problem!

Never be afraid to ask a friend what they think about the problem - including whether they think it is really a problem. If they don’t, it might still be a problem but it is one that your friend has identified as less important than other things in the work, and maybe you should take heed of that.

Engineer’s Dilemma: analysis paralysis

This is when you have begun analysing a problem but have become lost in analysing, or even addicted to analysing, and are now terrified of “just doing it”. After all, there might be something you’ve overlooked, or some detail that you have forgotten to analyse, or the analysis might not have reached satisfactory conclusions yet, etc.

This is a problem similar to perfectionism, and the solution is similar. Don’t try to persuade yourself to stop the analysis paralysis; simply make a “gut instinct” decision and run with it, with the understanding that you might delete this and start again if it doesn’t work out. You might be pleasantly surprised. And if it doesn’t work out, just do the same with one of the alternative options.

Engineer’s Dilemma: make it a bit more complicated

In a creative writing context, I have sometimes found that the solution to a dilemma is to make the thing a bit more complicated. For example, if you can’t work out why two characters would do a thing (eg. fall out, make up) then introduce a third character. In an essay writing context, sometimes a topic is too simple to stimulate you, so you could try introducing a second topic and juxtaposing the two.

A similar problem comes with structuring. Sometimes the best way to handle something is to split it into completely separate things. For example, if in the course of writing an essay you realise you are working towards making two different grand points, it might be best to write two separate essays.

If all else fails…

Once you have tried everything, there is no point “grinding metal”. It is time to disengage. Give yourself a day off from the thing - either work on something else or have some leisure time. If that doesn’t work, try three days away from it, or three months away from it if possible.

If none of this works, just try some random option and see where it leads. It’ll be better than nothing. After all, what have you got to lose?