The question

What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck?

Originally asked

The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series

A recurring Creative Independent question whose wording distinguishes a lasting block from a temporary impasse.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

RN
Rebecca Ness

Painter

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
I get really mad, and I’m like, “Well, I have to solve it.” I think of these things sometimes even as math problems. I take a photo of it, I turn it away, and I look at it in my phone a lot. An image becomes much less scary to solve when it’s not eight feet tall, but it’s eight centimeters tall. When I’m going to bed, I’m obsessively in the finger drawing app on my phone, and I try and figure out what to do with it. Eventually, I’ll figure out the answer, and then turn the painting back around and fix it, but it’s way harder to do when you’re just staring at the giant thing.

Emily Wilson, The Creative Independent, 17 July 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 82 →
J.K. Rowling Novelist and screenwriter
These days I can usually calm that particular critic down by feeding her a biscuit and giving her a break, although in the early days I sometimes had to take a week off before she’d take a more kindly view of the work in progress.
Recorded J.K. Rowling official website, 6 January 2019 source ↗
Richard Ford Novelist and short-story writer
The only habit you can rely in the Scarlet O'Hara rule: Tomorrow is another day. And you hope you are there for it.
Recorded Robert Birnbaum, Interview, Identity Theory, 16 February 2002 source ↗
Brian Jungen Canadian artist
You can move on, or if something gets overworked and you can put it down, cover it up, or something, and then come back to it and take it back to a place where you were still excited about it. I’m excited about having that opportunity again. I’m probably going to buy some land, but I don’t want to have agriculture be such a huge part of my life. As much as I believe in agriculture—and I think it’s very important that people know how to grow their own food—it’s another thing to take it on as another business and try do that at the same time as having an art career. I would not recommend it.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Yuri Nomura Chef and food director
Yes. I try not to overdo it. I think it comes down to the people, and there are several people I take the time to talk with. Different types of friends. I also like the transportation time when I’m traveling, like on an airplane. Those times allow me to see things I was missing, when I was only looking at the outside. Perhaps I travel in seek of that.
Recorded Ryu TakahashiBrandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent, 13 April 2021 source ↗

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