11 tips for you who have writing cramps
Well, now you are sitting there all alone and should get things out of you.
“Alone. Yes. Maybe I should check the email first. And Facebook. And Aftonbladet. Work now! Get started now! Do something, anything. Did I pick out the washing machine? Work now! But, my God, what have I done? This will never work! ”
Calm down, just calm down, it’s actually not that hard
When I got the job as lead author of the TV series “Friends and Enemies” completely without experience of TV, it was like being thrown into a hurricane with my head in front.
Imagine yourself. From sitting at home and writing novels and articles in newspapers at a leisurely pace to suddenly becoming responsible for the content of a TV series that cost the TV channel almost a hundred million. My job was to deliver great stories for sixteen characters – for ten episodes a week! Fortunately, I did not think about it. The only thing I thought of was the big blank board in the production company’s study. That was where I would sit. And the board, the white blank board, was five feet wide and two feet high. So my job was to fill that board with stories for 16 characters + guest roles in 180 episodes. In eighteen weeks. A smarter person than me would surely break down by the press.
But I had a head start. I knew how creativity works. How to get your head started, how to plan well and keep the steam going. We’ll talk about that now.
1. See the recipient clearly in front of you
Who should use, buy, see, read, consume what you come up with? I always see the reader, YOU, as my best friend to give tips on something I can. It makes it easy to write from the heart instead of ending up in a state where I do not know what tone I can have. You are my best friend that I want to push forward with the help of something I can and that you need to know. Then it is easy to formulate. Who do you turn to? Who is your best friend?
Create a challenge worthy of the name
If a task becomes too easy, then you hardly need to be present and then it becomes easy so that your creative ability says: “You can do this without me. Come back when you have something exciting to tell. ”
To awaken your creative ability properly, the job you face must be a reasonable challenge. Maybe it’s something you did not do, but wanted to do for a long time. Maybe it’s something that others do not think you can do, but that you want to do to disprove them.
If, on the other hand, you create a challenge that you are not ready for, then your own self-confidence will stand in the way and there is a great risk that you will fail just because you have already told yourself that you will fail. You may not see the value of your ideas and get stuck because the task is too big for you right now. And probably the solution is also a good distance outside your comfort zone. You may need to train more or learn to handle tools, e.g. computer programs that you do not master. That’s when your creativity tells you to quit this shitty job.
Do not listen then. Get the knowledge you need instead and go for it again.
Challenge yourself with an interesting goal. The more interesting and exciting your creative goals are, the easier it will be for you to focus on achieving it, despite all the distractions and interruptions.
ALSO READ: 10 questions that tickle the imagination
3. Prepare properly
Ideas come to those who are willing to receive them.
Researchers get ideas about science, not poetry – unless they are poets at the same time, of course. And vice versa. Talented musicians have ideas that turn into great music and talented writers create novels that can change our lives. A mechanic has ideas on how to modify an engine so that he knows engines. Those who have not prepared themselves to be creative rarely do. There is no such thing as too much input as long as you do not take it as the only truths and convince yourself that you can not get a new idea – and as long as you do not get stuck in research (there I pressed a sore point, admit !)
There is a danger with too much information. You can be analyzed paralyzed because you spend so much time thinking about a problem and pushing so much information into your head, that you lose the ability to act. Some people also get stuck in the research stage because it is a safe place to be. Gathering information is very easy. Starting to create something based on the information is more difficult. Getting started is most important of all. Therefore, make sure to take in information during the work and not just collect yourself as a large block in the beginning.
Knowledge + your personal touch = unique result.
4. Create your own warm-up ritual that gets you into the zone
Beethoven poured ice water over his head. Balzac drank gallons of coffee every day and it is said that Hemingway went up at dawn to sharpen twenty pencils. How to press the job button is different for everyone, so it’s up to you to find your own method.
For me, it’s about being clean and tidy around me. I like to clean the desk after every work day and can not have lots of stuff everywhere. Or dust on the computer. If I see that, I lose focus all the time. It’s about removing distractions. I usually give myself a quarter to throw away as much rubbish as possible, dust and tidy up, sort things where they should be and have clean surfaces. Touch is hopeless to me, even though there are researchers who claim that a chaotic environment should be good for creativity. Penicillin was discovered by chance when Alexander Fleming did not take care of a petri dish that had become moldy.
The point is, you need to find your own method to get started. Ordinary jobs are easy that way. It’s not that hard to get to a job where customers start calling – that’s the signal to get started, but to sit and try to get something to grow, whatever it is, can be difficult if you do not have a little trick for sig.
I think it was Benny Andersson (Abba) who said you have to sit outside the cave to wait for the bear. I think that expression perfectly describes what it’s about. You must be in place if the bear appears.
Yes, it is good to break routines as well because it forces us to think new, learn new things, grow and experiment, but those factors are good if they are already included in the routines. Those who talk badly about routines, waiting for the bear, have simply failed to develop routines that lead them forward. The trick is to find rituals and methods that evoke YOUR creativity. It has to suit you, quite simply.
I myself have 10,000 as a routine and 10,000 means the number of characters I have to write every day. Those signs are important because they are the only thing that shows that I work. A quantitative requirement that makes something grow. Usually there are more characters per day, but that’s because I also have a routine to quit when it’s the most fun. That’s right, I quit when it’s the most fun for the simple reason that I think it’s exciting to start working again the next morning (another routine).
The 19th century author Friedrich Schiller had rotten apples in his desk drawer and his feet in icy water when he wrote. I have pictures of my idols from different sitcom series on the walls because they make me happy and remind me that life should be fun. Ray Bradbury wrote his book “Fahrenheit 451” in a library. Stephen King wants to be completely silent around him and Harlan Ellisson listens to classical music at the highest volume. One of our authors at Redaktionen, Thomas Nilsson, sits in his closet in the dark for an hour (sometimes longer) every day and is extremely productive.
You need to find out what it takes for you to get the ideas started yourself because it is highly individual. But there is also something in common for everyone who is going to start a creative project. Here’s what to think about:
ALSO READ: This is how easy it is to write your own autobiography
5. Switch off the autopilot
Much of what we do every day we do with the autopilot connected. It is nice and requires a little energy. But when you have to work creatively, you need to turn off the autopilot and open up your brain. It’s a resistance. The brain is lazy and prefers to tinker with things that do not require much. Look for a mild discomfort. Then you are where you need to be. Feel free to summarize the project in a single sentence and write that sentence on a large note on the wall. That sentence puts your focus in the right place.
Trust your ability
Einstein was fired from school because his attitude was considered to have a negative effect on the other students. He failed the entrance exam to the university and had to wait a year before he was finally admitted. He was also the only one in his class who did not get a teaching position because no teacher wanted to recommend him. One teacher said Einstein was “the laziest dog the university has ever had.” Beethoven’s parents were told that their son was too stupid to compose music. Charles Darwin’s colleagues called him an idiot and that what he was doing was “idiotic experiments” when he was working on his theory of evolution. Walt Disney was fired from his first job at a newspaper because he “had no imagination.” Thomas Edison had only two years of schooling,
You see what happens if you stop listening to others and trust your own ability to do what you have decided to do.
7. Start a performance diary
If you work on larger and longer projects yourself, it is easy to lose track of what you have actually done. That’s why I always write down what problems I have solved every day and what the best ideas are. When everything feels listless and tough, it is liberating to take up that diary and see that you are actually on your way somewhere. The diary can also contain dreams and hopes that help to pep and motivate you to move forward.
8. Create an inspiration folder
This is a method that many artists use. All you need to get started is a folder that you can put things that inspire you in. It can be a folder on your computer or a physical folder. Every time you find something that you like and that inspires you, you can just throw it in the folder. When you then start something new or are stuck in something, you will find something good in your inspiration folder.
9. The extremely important thing to do something – anything
One mistake I hear about all the time is people sitting with a blank piece of paper in front of them and trying to come up with a brilliant idea. But they will only write or sketch something if it comes up with a great idea. They make a big mistake. The trick is to start somewhere. If you are just starting out, you will soon find a common thread to follow. Creating rubbish is very good because you get started. The brain starts up and it becomes easier to come up with good things if you just get over that threshold.
10. Finish each work shift correctly
It is devastating for creativity and the necessary discipline to always start with something unknown every day. Hemingway ended each day’s work when he knew what would happen next in the book he was writing. I took that to myself at the age of twenty-five and still use it today. It is incredibly smart to be eager to go back to work, unlike quitting when you are stuck. That is the best advice I have received in my career and now I will pass it on to you.
ALSO READ: The author: How to write a book – the answer is here
11. Finally: Be a little grateful
Before you start working, think for a moment and remind yourself that you probably have to do things that most people could give a left arm to do – and you also get paid for it. When you start to feel sorry for yourself because the job feels boring, remind yourself that you belong to a small select group that gets paid to invent things. It should give you a little more motivation.
I have examples of when it’s not like this in my circle of acquaintances where many people write TV in different ways and constantly whine about how boring it is (everyone who works with TV production really wants to make their own feature films). Wow, how many whiners there are among the creators I know. They complain about their well-paid TV jobs, customers’ unreasonable demands and lack of time.
I have a trick here too: When I work with really boring things and feel that the desire for life flows out of me, I think of Vilhelm Moberg’s Karl-Oskar and Kristina. Then I’m ashamed that I do not appreciate my life. In the end, it’s actually about the kind of creativity worker you want to be. You can choose to be one who is one hundred percent committed even when the job is easy or when you feel that you should be the one who decides everything. My experience is that no job is too small because everything you do leads to better things in the future, often without knowing what it will be.
