Strange Machines

I am convinced my creativity is absolutely random. It comes and goes like an absent-minded house guest who has a skeleton key to my home.

Just one week ago I was raring to make miniature houses. A month ago I was making plush rabbits as fast as they reproduce in real life.

From 2002-2004 I wrote 5 poems every day without fail. My muse was in overdrive. I wrote like I was on fire.

In 2005, it ebbed to 5 a month and I discovered World of Warcraft and joined Sulake. All my creative energy was channelled to my job.

Then I got pregnant and in 2006 gave birth to my best creation (hang on, hubby wants to claim credit too) yet, my sweet son Jack.

And today I feel like making nothing at all. In fact online retail therapy seems to be the order of the day.

I’ve always been a writer since I wrote my first poem at 5. It rhymed. That was about it. Then came the stories in high school, written in boring classes and later passed around my friends to read like a guilty trashy novel. All horror and science fiction, of course, with a touch of innocent teenage romance. I still have them!

I don’t know why I stopped writing.

Maybe it was the blast of creative energy I needed to inject for work. Maybe I had run out of tales to tell. Maybe I had exhausted all my angst and rage, now immortalised into those poems. The demons are all gone now. Poetry was therapy for me. A catharsis. And it was wonderful, so wonderful to be acknowledged by my peers for it.

Still, I took a ten year break from poetry when I first began at 5. Then I started again at 15 (yup, all that teenage angst in rhyme), began again at 29. Furiously. Maybe in another decade I will start again. Or maybe earlier if I gather up the 10 thousand words of The Flame and try to beat it into something worth reading.

I have spent the past few years reading. A new mother’s witching hour hobby. There are many new stories in me. The amazing real ones and those fantastic ones which entrap you between words.

Perhaps when Jack sleeps through the night I will begin. As with every journey, every story begins with a single word.

It is an occupational hazard for all writers. Sometimes our muse seems to have gone on holiday without any prior notice. So when she is gone, where do we find inspiration to write?

For me, it has always been easy to write. Almost second nature. Throw me a topic and I’ll go on about it like a dog chasing a flying stick. Yet there are the days when knowing what to write about completely eludes me.

Unless of course, the lack of inspiration becomes the topic itself. Aha… so here are some tips on summoning your inner muse when your outer muse is out of town. The key is to find a topic you are passionate about:

1. Read - reading is like going into cruise control. Topics will leap out at you. Let them come and put them to paper.

2. Surf - the Internet is a goldmine of information. Go to your favourite sites and see where they lead you. Let discovery be an adventure in itself.

3. Lie back and think - let your mind roam. Your mind will naturally review the day and give you fuel to write about.

4. Enjoy real life - play with your pet or baby. Take them out to the park and breathe in life. That in itself is something to write about.

We all deal with it at some point in life.

Whether it is finishing that 3000 word essay in school, or crunching out our memoir in time for the publisher’s deadline, the words simply do not come.

The solution: switch gears.

Writer’s block is a crippling sensation. Whether or not we are in a time crunch, the feeling is frustrating. The words are in a knot that refuse to untangle; your mind feels like mush and it is nothing to do with all the alcohol you consumed last night. You see the bills piling and the deadline looming and all you want to do is to crawl under the sheets and scream.

Hang on, hang on, get off that ledge. This is fixable.

Writer’s block often comes at a time when the piece you are writing has hit a snag. It won’t flow normally. Don’t panic. There is a solution.

Switch projects. Keep writing, but on something else.

If you don’t have a new project, start one. At least you won’t lose the momentum. Later, return to the piece and see if it can be fixed. If not, repeat.

If after several tries, the piece won’t budge, pick up a book and read. Sometimes the secret to unravelling the knot lies in someone else’s literature. Sometimes you need to remove yourself from your own work and see it objectively.

That said, return, try, repeat.

However, if after many tries, the knot still won’t budge, you’ll have to cut it off. As painful as it is, occasionally a particular part of the piece is not working for the whole.

Rewrite that part. Trail back to as far as you can see the rope burns and try again.

If it doesn’t work, go back to the beginning of this article, read, try, repeat. Good luck.