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.

Recorded Shantell Martin said elsewhere, not written here
You know, typically I like to draw when I’m in a good mood. It’s difficult for me to start a drawing when I’m not in a good mood because my work, in it’s essence, is very free and very light. For that to take place, you also have to feel quite free and quite light.

Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

View all 67 →
Katie Tupper Canadian singer-songwriter
I think I get writer’s block all the time in every session that I do. There are always going to be blocks that happen. You should treat yourself cyclically, you’re going to go through periods where you just need to be intaking.
Recorded Hannah Harlacher, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Nuno Costa Santos Portuguese footballer
I talk to someone. Dialogue helps relax the mind and new ideas are planted as people talk to me. Sometimes one phone call is enough, other times meeting a friend at a café or a bar will do the trick. To take the focus out of ourselves for a while helps us find new creative ways. We shouldn’t be prisoners to the traps our brain creates. To read or to go out for a walk can also be rather helpful.
Recorded T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Phil Elverum American musician and songwriter
I just let it sit there. Yeah, I do get it. It’s more like ideas come in waves and I don’t try and force it. Although I haven’t for a while. In the past year and a half, I can’t keep up with the ideas. I have a lot of ideas, and that’s a great feeling. It hasn’t been this way for a long time.
Recorded Rebecca Hiscott, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Ramona Ausubel Novelist and short-story writer
I feel like that’s my actual profession: to get stuck and then get unstuck. That’s what I actually spend most of my time doing. It happens mostly in fiction for me. But maybe that’s what we all are doing all the time. That might be what life is, I feel like, is taking something as far as you can and then being like, “I actually don’t know what to do next.” And then, having to figure out, “Okay. So how is that an opportunity?”
Recorded Hurley Winkler, The Creative Independent, 17 October 2023 source ↗

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