In a creative slump? Six tips for recovery

Creative slumps can happen to anyone who strives to bring creative works into the world, be they written works, visual art, music, or handicrafts. Slumps can come on slowly or all at once. Often you aren't entirely aware you're in a slump until you've spent some time there, stuck and unmotivated.

Slump thinking sounds like this:

"I'm so stressed out, I can't focus."
"My brain is so full of noise, I can't hear my characters."
"These ideas are just a big mess."
"This project feels rangy and shapeless."
"I can't remember why I ever thought this was a good story idea."
"Why can't I make any progress?"
"I want to write, but feel adrift every time I sit down."
"I used to have things to say. I'm not sure what I believe or care about right now."
"I should be farther along than this. I'm such a hack/poseur/failure."

Slumps tend to happen after you've expended a lot of energy in one direction (say finishing and releasing a new book) and in the midst of crises in your personal life.

Very possibly it's a temperament thing, that some bounce back quickly from burnout and/or crises, and others of us slip into slumps.

If you're one of those bouncy types, I beg you not to douse your slumped friends with buckets of positive thinking mantras. They make us feel worse--inadequate and deeply flawed, rather than simply different from you. Instead, remind us that you care. Listen without dispensing advice. Invite us to join you in some activity we can enjoy together that's not too demanding--taking a hike or walking tour, poking around cute shops, playing cards or board games, visiting an art opening, crafts festival, outdoor concert, or mellow jazz club. Something fun that gets us out of the house--and out of our own heads for a few hours.

Make no mistake, slumps can morph pretty quickly into full blown depression. If you're prone to it, seek professional help. If your slump feels more like creativity blues--you're functioning okay in other areas of your life, but aren't creating at all--some self-care may be your road out of the Slough of Despond.

Here are some ways you can help yourself:

Go someplace new

Get off the couch or out of the desk chair and leave the house--explore someplace new, even if it's a ten minute stroll down a side street in your neighborhood you've never been on before.  Take a slightly different route to work, try a new restaurant, shop at a different market. When "something different" feels beyond your grasp, little forays out of your routine can be a powerful way to prove that mental message wrong--different is ten feet from boring, old, usual, not ten thousand miles. And you can get there in a few steps.

Care for your body

Times of stress can make it difficult to maintain an exercise program or sleep schedule. Stress eating can leave you even more lethargic. Look for small ways to begin giving your body the care it needs, starting with good sleep hygiene, then good food choices, simple exercise (like walking), and a little pampering like a haircut or new outfit. Some change can work from the outside in.

Seek some small accomplishments

Emerging from a slump is a gradual process. Look around for a few small things you've been avoiding and accomplish those things--whether it's making some overdue doctor appointments, weeding that ugly patch in the corner of your yard, or reorganizing a dresser drawer. That sense of pride can energize increasingly larger projects.

Reconnect with old loves

Slumps can feel like a source of joy has taken off, abandoned you. Think about long-lost hobbies or enthusiasms you haven't tried in a while, whether it's going back to earliest memories of finger painting or biking with your elementary pals, playing an instrument you gave up after high school, or a craft you've forgotten about like knitting, sewing, or leather craft, decoupage or beading. Creativity begets creativity.

Draw on sources of strength

Connect with people who love you, like an long-term friend, a sibling, or a grandparent. Chances are after a brief phone call you'll realize how deeply you are valued and valuable to others. Pick up an inspiring book like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, or Rising Strong by Brene Brown. Resume or take up new spiritual practices, like prayer, meditation, or scripture reading. Talk to a counselor or mentor.

Take baby steps with your dreaded project

In the peak of a slump, you're going to view everything about your unfinished writing project with a jaundiced eye. But once you've begun the process of emerging from it. look for ways to reconnect with it. Glance over your notes, and perhaps organize them. Research some aspect of the story, whether it's details about your hero's job, the psychology of the family dynamic in  your story, floor plans of the buildings in your setting, or cultural influences on your characters. Create an idea board on Pinterest. Brainstorm concepts for the cover design. Interview your characters or write journal entries in their voices. Bit by bit, these fictional people and their world will come alive for you again.

Have you ever suffered a creative slump? What helped you emerge from it?

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Two habits that will cultivate creativity

I don't know about the rest of you, but August can be a very chaotic month for me, with vacations and back-to-school preparations and a total lack of routine in far too many areas. My daughter's dance lessons are "drop ins" and her guitar teacher shifts days around, some church activities don't meet, while others are more frequent.

But even when I feel this scattered, I have a couple of routines that help me not lose all track of my writing.

Walk

Image by jorgeyu, morguefile.com

A fifteen to thirty minute walk first thing in the morning makes me more alert and helps me gather my thoughts. I bring no gadgets, no music, no companions. This is distraction-free time when I can just think.

An April 2014 study from Stanford University found "Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter." They also noted "Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting."

The good news? It's the act of walking and not the environment that matters. So when the weather's horrid, stepping onto a treadmill can give you similar benefits.

Of course, there are also health benefits to a daily walk, including reduced cancer, diabetes and heart disease risk. And if you're struggling with low energy, short walks are the ticket to breaking the vicious cycle of lethargy (lethargy tends to breed more lethargy). A bit of sun exposure during an outdoor walk will increase your levels of vitamin D, an important nutrient that improves not only bone health but also mood (why that is hasn't yet been studied in depth, but depression can be a symptom of vitamin D deficiency).

A walk can also be a great afternoon pick-me-up, especially when you've hit a crossroads in a story and can't decide how to proceed. Let your mind roam as your feet do, and your creative mind will offer ideas and solutions.

Write longhand

While I have no desire to return to the days of all longhand composition, I do find it extremely helpful to do some longhand writing every day, whether note jotting, brainstorming, or free-writing. I've tried all kinds of warm ups over the years and longhand is the one that never fails to "prime the pump" for me.

Apparently educators and cognitive scientists have been looking into why longhand writing is so beneficial to our brains. Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, used brain scans in her research on the benefits of longhand. She found that "as your hand executes each stroke of each letter, it activates a much larger portion of the brain’s thinking, language, and 'working memory' regions than typing." Keyword there? The language portion of the brain is more actively engaged.

Another study of elementary aged children found "writing by hand improves students’ creative writing skills, and elementary students actually write more quickly by hand than when typing. Compositions are also longer when written by hand...."  My experience bears that out--when writing longhand I'm more apt to write more ideas and edit less. There's something about the flow of the physical act of moving a pen across paper that keeps ideas flowing. (For more on this line of research, see "How Handwriting Trains the Brain.")

If you want to get out of the vicious cycle of having nothing to say, try journaling about it with a pen and paper. Chances are pretty good that you'll have more to say about having nothing to say than you might believe. Then voila, you've taken the first baby steps away from wordlessness and toward expression.

What routines do you try to maintain in chaotic times? What benefits have you found from walking and/or writing longhand?

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H: Having it out with Melancholy

by Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.
—A. P. CHEKHOV The Cherry Orchard

  1  FROM THE NURSERY

Photo by damoiselle at morguefile.com

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad -- even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours -- the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.


           2  BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.


3  SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.


           4  OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep's
frail wicker coracle.


5  ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors -- those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.


       6  IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .


           7  PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.


           8  CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.


  9  WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.

Source: poets.org

I hope you'll forgive the length of today's offering, because it's a powerful piece. Researchers have found a strong link between depression and creativity, so it's a small wonder that many writers and poets struggle with this illness. Many, like Sylvia Plath, take their own lives. This poet, though she struggled with depression her entire adult life, died of leukemia, not suicide.

Her snapshot approach with the stanzas is striking and worth emulating. When trying to tackle a large topic that has many faces, giving us facets rather than an integrated narrative is quite powerful. That she ends with a scene of finding tranquility and beauty (thanks in part to the medication Nardil, an MAOI) gives the piece a hopeful air. The "unholy ghost" of depression may come again tomorrow, but Kenyon is determined to keep fighting it.

What lines or images stand out to you?

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"I want to join in, but...": another kind of blues

Every year, I toy with the idea of joining the A-Z blogging challenge, and I always talk myself out of it. It has the potential to be a huge time suck. But it's also a great way to make new connections, and I could use some of those. As part of my new year's housecleaning, I unfollowed seventy-some blogs I used to read that have gone inactive. That's a lot of lost connection.

April is also National Poetry Month, which would make it very, very easy to come up with a theme for posts. Poem a day, featuring the letter of the day. I could introduce readers to some poets they may not know or simply forgot. I could challenge myself to write a new piece or three to work into the lineup. With planning, I could get a majority of the posts prepared well ahead of time.

So what's the problem?

I don't seem to be able to maintain enthusiasm for anything for very long. Inevitably, I hit a low every single month and it's a struggle to do much other than soldier through those eight or nine days doing the absolute minimum. It's "just" a hormonal thing, and a pretty rare one that only about 8% of women deal with. But because there have been so many studies linking depression to creativity, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of my writer friends also suffer from the same thing. Unlike clinical depression, PMDD clears up quickly, and that can make you feel extra crazy. And then guilty. Really, really guilty for these short spurts of do-nothing.

Apparently dietary changes and supplements are the first line of attack with the fewest side effects. So if you also find yourself going through monthly 7-14 day stints of feeling really blue, lethargic, unable to enjoy or engage with anything, irritable, having sleep problems, or any of these symptoms, studies show that upping your intake of magnesium, calcium, vitamin B6 and l-tryptophan will improve how you feel. There are other medication options your doctor might also want to try.

I've been encouraged by others' willingness to share their struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. I hope this encourages those out there who feel absolutely terrible a week every month of the year. It's a chemical thing for us, too, friends. Try the dietary changes. Talk to your doctor. Don't just keep sucking it up and toughing it out alone.

Have you participated in the A-Z challenge? If so, what did you enjoy most about it? Do you struggle to be a joiner? Why?

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