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The question

What do you do when you feel creatively 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.

Rickie Lee Jones

Singer and songwriter

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
I just wait. I accept that I might not write anymore. I accept that life changes and that maybe it’s not the end of the world even if it feels like it. That was a thing going on about 15 years ago with me. I don’t really feel that way anymore, but when it was happening it was hard. It feels like it might never come again, and then you just accept it.

T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

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Bill Sellanga Musician, producer and DJ, performing as Blinky Bill
I have a DJ side that I’ve developed, and so when creative blocks hit me I tend to spin a lot more than usual. Also, just trying my hand in other fields. I’m looking at sewing classes the next time I have a creative block.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent, 3 August 2017 source ↗
Matthew Zapruder American poet
Absolutely. I also have some ideas that are more philosophical—or maybe even spiritual—that have to do with my faith in language as material. I’m interested in allowing as much of my unconscious to come through. I think my own consciousness is not so interesting and I don’t generally write to express myself. I write to find deep truths for myself and for other people and to make poems that feel like they’re connected with a deep, essential aspect of human experience. Even if the poems themselves are very specific or particular, somehow they’re connected to those forces. That’s what I’m looking for in poetry. I need to get out of myself, in a way. I believe in language and I want to subject myself to it. That’s why I like working with found text or just putting myself out into the world where other people are talking, listening to what they’re saying, walking by signs and looking at newspapers and things. Picking up on the glimpses of truth in language, then trying to work that into the poems.
Recorded T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Alysha Brilla Canadian musician
I do believe that some of the funniest people you’ve ever met might not ever be on a stage. Similarly, some of the most talented musicians you will ever hear are playing in a little house somewhere across the world. Some of the most profound exchanges of words happen between two people who are channeling an intimacy and depth of humanity which not all of us will hear.
Recorded Sania Khan, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
Shantell Martin British visual artist
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.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

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