Hello. Some of you may not know this, but I extensively write fan fiction about what would happen if different Harry Potter characters were in a high stakes single elimination ping pong tournament with a £40 million prize pool. Vincent Crabbe is about to win, mostly due to the fact that his name is Crabbe and I find that quite funny.
But I digress. I've been having a problem recently; I just can't seem to come up with good ideas. My writing has been falling into cliches, and the quality of my prose has also declined.
Despite the dubious skill levels, I know Smogoff is full of creative people like artists, musicians, and B2W2 teambuilders. So I've come to ask Smogoff: what do you collectively do when your creative juices are running low? Give me advice on how I can light that spark and really get some new ideas bouncing around my mostly hollow head.
First I'll tell you about a few things I've tried to be creative.
Technique 1
Technique 2
Technique 3
Everyone in Smogoff, please share your full creative process with me in this thread. I'm dying to know. As well as this, please share any creative techniques you've tried that haven't worked - so I know what to avoid.
But I digress. I've been having a problem recently; I just can't seem to come up with good ideas. My writing has been falling into cliches, and the quality of my prose has also declined.
Despite the dubious skill levels, I know Smogoff is full of creative people like artists, musicians, and B2W2 teambuilders. So I've come to ask Smogoff: what do you collectively do when your creative juices are running low? Give me advice on how I can light that spark and really get some new ideas bouncing around my mostly hollow head.
First I'll tell you about a few things I've tried to be creative.
Technique 1
I'm highly lactose intolerant, which is normally an inconvenience. But, I've found a way to leverage it if I want to be at my most creative - like when I wrote the 50 page (8pt font, times new roman) manuscript for my Mad-Eye Moody vs Neville Longbottom piece.
I believe that discomfort is a great way to spark ideas, so if I want to have great ideas I put myself in uncomfortable situations. For someone who's lactose intolerant like me, this involves consuming a lot of dairy products. When I wake up I have 2 yoghurts, a glass of milk, and eat twice the raw butter I do normally. A few hours later I have to go the the bathroom and that's when my ideas run wild.
Additionally, I get a second creativity inspiring bout of discomfort when I have to explain to the plumber why I'm calling him for the 6th time this month.
I believe that discomfort is a great way to spark ideas, so if I want to have great ideas I put myself in uncomfortable situations. For someone who's lactose intolerant like me, this involves consuming a lot of dairy products. When I wake up I have 2 yoghurts, a glass of milk, and eat twice the raw butter I do normally. A few hours later I have to go the the bathroom and that's when my ideas run wild.
Additionally, I get a second creativity inspiring bout of discomfort when I have to explain to the plumber why I'm calling him for the 6th time this month.
Technique 2
I heard that a lot of successful poets like to go outside and look at nature to draw inspiration. I tried this, but it simply didn't work for me.
The trees never did anything inspiration worthy no matter how much I provoked them (they really have a lot of self control for an animal), and all the fleeing I had to do meant that I couldn't get a good enough look at the bears to actually draw any inspiration from them.
When I got back to my home I saw a bulls-eye marking on my arm, which I thought was a sign that my creative muse had 'targeted' me for inspiration, but it turned out that going to the forest just gave me lyme disease.
The trees never did anything inspiration worthy no matter how much I provoked them (they really have a lot of self control for an animal), and all the fleeing I had to do meant that I couldn't get a good enough look at the bears to actually draw any inspiration from them.
When I got back to my home I saw a bulls-eye marking on my arm, which I thought was a sign that my creative muse had 'targeted' me for inspiration, but it turned out that going to the forest just gave me lyme disease.
Technique 3
My final option was meditation. I decided to travel to the mountains of Peru, because I've always felt like meditation is a lot cooler when done at high altitudes.
Unfortunately, the marmosets who live over there are apparently quite creative themselves, and had quickly come up with the new idea of throwing rocks at me while I tried to meditate. This made it quite difficult to clear my head of all wordly pains.
Additionally, the meditation help app that I used wasn't the best choice for me. After an hour or two of using it, the idea that a 20 year old kid who gets paid to do voice-over work was my ultimate spiritual guide to the universe got to me, and I had a breakdown and left the mountain.
On the way down a llama spit on me, which isn't relevant to the story, but is something that's been irking me ever since. How would the llama like it if I spit on him? Not much, probably.
Unfortunately, the marmosets who live over there are apparently quite creative themselves, and had quickly come up with the new idea of throwing rocks at me while I tried to meditate. This made it quite difficult to clear my head of all wordly pains.
Additionally, the meditation help app that I used wasn't the best choice for me. After an hour or two of using it, the idea that a 20 year old kid who gets paid to do voice-over work was my ultimate spiritual guide to the universe got to me, and I had a breakdown and left the mountain.
On the way down a llama spit on me, which isn't relevant to the story, but is something that's been irking me ever since. How would the llama like it if I spit on him? Not much, probably.
Everyone in Smogoff, please share your full creative process with me in this thread. I'm dying to know. As well as this, please share any creative techniques you've tried that haven't worked - so I know what to avoid.