How do you find inspiration when your muse has gone AWOL?

Travel. Get out of town. Go somewhere that seems like a dumb idea. A small town. Eat at a place where you would never think of eating. Go to the inner city and drive around. Buy a new sex toy. These things all help me recover my creativity.

This isn’t something I usually recommend, but sometimes when I feel like I’m at a brick wall, I just force it. I start out with something uncreative and just write. A lot of the time it’s really just an exercise in futility. But sometimes it’ll turn into something good or spark an idea for something else I like better.

Acid…

@MacBean That’s actually a very valid writing technique called freewriting. You just write for a certain length of time without worrying about content. If you can’t think of anything to say you just write that you can’t think of anything to say. After you are done, you can go back and sometimes find “diamonds in the dust heap” (Virginia Woolf) but the main purpose is not to produce a piece of writing but to unblock your block and get the juices flowing again.

Hunt her down and cast yourself at her knees. In other words, re-write and edit your previous compositions until, seduced by your assiduous devotion to her previous promptings, she once again smiles her beneficent favor upon you.

@janbb : for us poets, it sometimes works to drag out the ol’ rhyming dictionary and just start writing couplets with attention to only meter and rhyme, not imagery—f.e.,

“Life with wife is rife with strife.”

Fortunately, this technique is of no help to writers of “free” (undisciplined) verse.

See here.

AS a writer, I can tell you that all of ll the above suggestions are great. And here’s one more: stop worrying about it. Even when you think you’re blocked, your subconscious (muse) contines to noodle. I guarantee it.

I would recomend visiting an art exhibition or browsing for showcases. Also poor life decisions are very good for your creative spirit :-) “poor decitions make best stories” Also lucid dreaming is a good thing for a creative crysis.

Personally I listen to different types of music or if it’s really bad I’ll go to an art gallary. But generally music really works for me. Just two nights ago I was blasting “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga while finishing my biology project. My brother and sister swore I was high. It worked and I got an A so I’m not complaining.

I bet you could really relate to this talk. As that link probably gave away, one thing I like to do to “get inspired” is watch TED talks (like this one).

Check out Edward de Bono and his work on ‘Lateral Thinking’.
And ,as @Austinlad says, relax. Don’t worry. Don’t try and force it.
Even go so far as to distract yourself with unrelated stuff.
Your intuition (inner tutor) will eventually pop something into your conscious mind.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I’ll break through it yet. ;)

@kevbo I think I might actually buy myself that for Christmas. It looks quite amusing. :)

@timtrueman I can, yes but I found that second talk much more interesting for one point, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original”. Which is one of my biggest problems in trying to write. I suppose I’m terrified of being laughed at whereas before I couldn’t have cared less. Of course, this is what Elizabeth Gilbert was talking about with the reactions of people to Eat, Pray, Love. Thanks for sharing, I’ll be having a further look at some other TED talks.

@LexWordsmith I find it even harder to revise older works than to come up with new ones. I’m not really sure why that is. I think I feel that they no longer belong to me. Or perhaps I just no longer feel attached to them enough to do so.

@Sueanne_Tremendous Break out of the norm? Yes, I imagine that would help. It would freshen things up I expect. Thanks.

@Austinlad & @lloydbird I’ll try. It’s been too long though, since I’ve created anything I liked. Maybe I just need a new angle.

@MacBean @janbb I’ve tried freewriting before but it never really gets anywhere. I think it’s related to my fear of writing something ridiculous or “getting it wrong”. I do try and write in my notebook everyday and it’s mostly just me thinking on paper. Although I still find that difficult, I sometimes do discover occasional “diamonds in the dust heap”

@tomasreichmann Oh that’s good because I’m king of bad life decisions ;)

@dogkittycat I agree. Music usually does help. I used to enjoy creating space scenes and would put on some classical music and drift away in the creation of universes ( the star field alone would take me a few hours). I might take that up again, it was so relaxing and might help… I still have a piece I never got round to finishing. Thanks for the idea ;)