…a few words on breaking a creative block.
By Ben Zoltak
WHAT DO TIKI-STYLE LOUNGES AND HAIKUS HAVE TO DO WITH BREAKING CREATIVE BLOCKS? READ ON.
Yesterday I mentioned to a friend that, “If you work in a tiki bar, there’s going to be haikus, right?”
She laughed and that reaction alone would have been enough satisfaction for the day …except the context of that sentence was even more important to me. Inadvertently, thanks to two articulate and beautiful women and two off-the-cuff, haikus, I sensed I was being pulled out of a month-long block I’d been enduring.
Authoring verbiage can be hard, and writer’s block is real, especially in winter, especially in Wisconsin and other wintry climes with shortened days and seasonal blues. I heard Stephen King on some video somewhere, speaking about how he can only usually write about four hours a day, I wish he had revealed if he also writes on the weekends…but anyway I digress. Creating in any regard can be difficult as we struggle to get enough sunlight and Vitamin D this time of year, much less being consistent with our endeavors.
ON CONSISTENCY IN WRITING
When I was a boy, I somehow attained a hard cover journal, with a fancy paisley fabric cover, and nice lined pages in between. Years later I found the journal and in it, on the first page, something to the effect was written, “I am so glad I finally have a journal. I can’t wait to write in it every day.”
Then on the next page it was blank. Also the following page, and the one after that. I shared it with the people I was with at the time and we all had a good belly laugh about the nearly entirely blank journal and the contrast of my failed daily goal.
Fast forward to college at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, and I soon found myself drawing in my sketchbook regularly and writing in my journal daily. This was required to pass one college level English course taught by Professor and sports columnist Richard Doxtater, who had a warm enough sense of humor to allow for ANY form of expression, from poems and recipes to sketches to sports stats… still most of the college-level students had trouble “creating” something daily, not this guy of course. Working on art and writing in college gave me enough support to realize many dozens of oil paintings, a dozen or more reliefs and sculptures, the first draft of a 125-page novel, a plethora of poems and prose in the form of reports for my Zoology class and business writing course, for example. Oftentimes studying art and creative writing in college is seen by some as wasteful, the austerity crowd has trouble connecting the dots. But the best stories about science are told creatively.
Science, technology, engineering and math are boring as hell without any art around. It’s a kneejerk reaction the STEM crowd needs to reassess. NASA almost didn’t bring a camera to orbit the first time they launched John Glenn! They had to run to a Walgreens or some such pharmacy at the last second and pick up a 35mm to toss in the Friendship 7 for some pics! Don’t take my word for it, NASA has an excellent bit of nonfiction prose about it, here. I graduated from UWSP with evidence to myself that I could accomplish consistency, they have a reputation for generating creatives that get-shit-done up there, and I’m thankful I had the chance to rub elbows with people who knew more than me and were kindly willing to share. From then on it was full STEAM ahead for me, with the knowledge that I could accomplish my creative goals with the approval of my peers, mentors and friends.
Photo B. Zoltak
ON UNIQUELY BREAKING CREATIVE BLOCKS
I realize, now that I’ve been looking at it more, that breaking a creative block is a bit like getting out of a funk or a depression. Sometimes it’s damn near possible. Friends help, as does finding someone to admire, and then rekindling your passion from there. Hence the aforementioned haikus… any unique path that feels right, go down it readily if you feel synchronicity, it worked for me.
Now that I’ve typed it out it seems so obvious, which brings me to a third way to help break a writing or other creative block: reflection. Although too much reflection can lead you around and around in an analysis-is-paralysis kind of way, a little bit is like sending yourself up to the crows-nest to finally get out of the icebergs of winter gloom. Finally, another way to break a creative block, is to get busy living with physical activity, as Olivia Newton John sang about in her 1981 classic “Physical” which was originally supposed to be sung by none other than, Mr. If-you-want-my-body, Rod Stewart. Anyway, I ran a few sprints in the sand, down at North Beach in Racine the other day, Lake Michigan waves steadily encouraging my impromptu workout. I could sense this also helped shake my creative block.
As I continue to work on my art and writing here, a friend reminds me to find balance between life’s obligations and life’s passions, which a good friend will often remind us to do. It’s important to have a strategy in my experience, and for Warm by the Fire, I’m giving myself the privilege of not beating myself up for going at whatever speed I can.
Partly for me, I enjoy what I would call, a kind of rolling variable, a variables’ variable if you will, the Mitch Hedberg to my life’s stand-up comedy/tragedy, in the casual algorithm that is my creative routine. Most people prefer a regimented and predictable schedule and routine, I prefer a sometimes regimented and more-or-less predictable routine. Then there’s uploading pictures… does anything slow us down more than getting caught in a quagmire of techno-details? I’ve been practicing ye olde FTP and once I get a better feel for my new HP x360 laptop I think that’ll help me move the photos along expeditiously.
Well, my fingertips are cold, I’ve just cranked the thermostat up to regain feeling in my extremities hahahaha, life in another Midwest winter goes on.
Make some blue sky today if it isn’t already in front of you.
Find more of Ben Zoltak’s art and writing on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/satellituvzoltak/