Arts Entertainments

Creative Writing: How to Find and Maintain Your Unique Creative Writing Groove

One of the most important elements to being able to write regularly, deeply, and consistently as a creative writer is being able to find your own unique rhythm of creative writing.

If we don’t learn to listen and tune in to the unique creative rhythm each of us has, we will find it a constant battle to stay motivated and productive on our creative writing projects.

Professional athletes and sportsmen talk about being “in the zone”, where they are performing at the highest level and everything flows. We can apply the same principle to writing.

So how do we know when we’re not “in the zone”when we are out of sync with our natural creative rhythm?

Some of the telltale signs are:

write inconsistent amounts – 10 pages flow freely one day, but the next day you struggle to put 10 words together.

Be obsessive about the little details. – you spend hours rewriting a single difficult line 30 times, and finally you go back to the first version you came up with.

sticky shoe syndrome – you just can’t get going, typing feels as easy as wading through molasses in concrete boots. With an elephant on his back.

losing objectivity – Struggling to see the bigger vision in the project you are writing about. It’s like trying to see a mountain range from ground level, rather than flying above it in a helicopter to get an overview of the landscape.

feel out of control – you are aware that sometimes your creative writing flows like Niagara Falls and other days it is barely as fruitful as a dripping faucet. But you have no idea why and you don’t feel in control.

So what’s the secret to overcoming some of these struggles and finding YOUR unique creative groove?

In short: experiment and try.

If you keep doing the same things over and over again, the same things that don’t work, then of course they won’t work. And you will continue to be inconsistent, erratic, and frustrated in your creative writing.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to become an emotional robot, churning out perfect page after perfect page of creative writing.

No problem.

There are natural peaks and lulls in our minds and bodies, in our moods, and in our personal circumstances. They are part of being a human being.

But if we learn to recognize these patterns, learn to find when we are naturally at our best, at our peaks, we can begin to find our creative rhythm.

And when we do that, we reduce the kind of telltale signs like the ones above that we feel when we’re struggling to create.

Then we can create more consistently, more abundantly, and more deeply than ever before.

How do you experiment then to help you find your natural creative rhythm?

Here are some of the factors you can play around with and see what works best for you:

– The time of day you write.

– How long do you write?

– How you manage or eliminate distractions.

– The materials you use to write.

– Where do you write?

– What breaks you have, how long and how often.

– What you do (if anything) to prepare to write.

– Whether you use background music or sounds, or silence.

– How you have your writing space physically configured.

– How you decide when your writing time is up for that session.

Experiment with only one of these variables at a time or you won’t be able to track changes effectively.

Once you’ve found the best way to work with that particular factor, stick with it and go ahead and adjust the next one.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll be well on your way to finding your own unique creative groove. You will also begin to see your creative writing reach new levels.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *