One Small Daily Habit to Spark Your Creativity!

Like many creatives there are times when my ‘other job’, life, relationships, the fact that the world is on fire - gets in the way of my creativity. This can lead to frustration, over thinking, wanting to do everything but ending up doing nothing, and for me anyway, usually leads to a long bought of inactivity or as I would have previously coined it ‘writers block’.

I’ve read; The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, The Creative Act by Rick Ruben and a myriad of Steven Pressfield books, ‘The War of Art’ was really helpful getting my creative juices flowing. And I wholeheartedly recommend all of the above to any struggling creative (see my previous post), but it wasn’t until I set myself a small challenge that I really felt like I was getting back into a real ‘flow’ with my writing.

I have always been intrigued by others ‘creative practice’, the time they dedicate to their craft and I’ve always been quite jealous. Especially as in recent years I haven’t been able to dedicate the time or brain space I personally need (as I mentioned earlier) due to; my ‘other job’, life, the fact the world is on fire etc. So in an attempt to develop a ‘creative practice’ I set myself a goal, a small daily goal that is helping me create and feel reinvigorated about my writing.

First, I bought myself an A5 note book, then set myself the goal of one page per day for ninety days. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but I just need to sit down every day for ninety days and write one page of poetry a day – no excuses.

Now thirty five days in, I’ve written the most poetry I’ve written in a long time and I’m slowly building a creative practice! Yes, there’s plenty of slop in there, but I’ve also written a few I really love and have started to develop them into bigger pieces. Just the act of sitting down with the sole purpose of writing a page of poetry, however long it takes, everyday really has cleared my head, that writer’s block, and something is building!

So why don’t you try it. Ninety days, an A5 notebook and pen, all you have to do is write one page a day, no matter where you are, just make the time. It could take 5 mins or half an hour. Just get your ideas on the page!

A few rules I set myself (feel free to make your own)

·      The notebook is only for the ninety day challenge

·      One page a day, that is all. If you’re inspired to write more, use another notebook

·      It doesn’t have to be good, make it exist first

·      No repeats, different poems everyday

·      Can be more than one poem/idea on the page

·      Write left to right, top to bottom, sideways, whatever works

·      Continue for as long as it’s helpful….

Let me know how you get on!