Episode 5 - Getting unstuck. What to do when your creativity has left the building?

Who hasn't?  Drew, Pat, and Joni unpack what it means to be stuck, why it happens, and offer navigation tips for those moments when the creative police come knocking.  Discover why moving plants found its way into the conversation, and find other hacks to help us all keep going.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

An author, a psychotherapist, and an entrepreneur walked into a bar. What came out is Dead Frog in the Driveway, a podcast that celebrates our potential as creative beings. No matter who you are, no matter what you might believe, no matter what you've been told. If you've ever wrestled with a blank page, a stuck idea, or a shifting sense of purpose, we hope you'll find some company and maybe some inspiration from this podcast. Our show is co-hosted by author and teacher Joni B. Cole, therapist and writer Pat Williams, and me, Drew Rockwell, a writer and business entrepreneur who still believes my dead frog in the driveway story deserved a much better grade. But it's time to move on and get started with today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Hey Drew, hey Pat. How are you guys today?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Hey Johnny, pretty good. Yeah, good to see you guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Well, I'm glad we're here because today's topic is something near and dear to my heart, which is being stuck in the creative process.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Oh my God, I'm always stuck. Oh goodness. Well, that doesn't bode well for our listeners. But well, maybe I'm good at getting out.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I want to talk about what to do when we feel like our creativity has left the building. I'm sure listeners can relate. But even before that, I'm curious, what does it mean for you guys in your creative processes? What does it mean to be stuck, to feel stuck for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Big question. I think Pat, you gotta go first.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

I do. What does it mean to be stuck to me? I feel kind of split, I guess. Meaning, you know, there's a part of me that you know wants to can imagine moving. I don't want to say moving forward because I don't even know what that means, but moving. And yet there's another part of me that feels like, you know, somehow my feet are stuck in clay. That's sort of the visual metaphor that I get.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Oh. Relatable.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

What about you, Drew?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Uh I just hate the feeling of being stuck and just in everything I do in life. I get this cooped-up feeling. I it almost feels trapped in a way. And it and you know, it can happen in a creative process, it can happen in lots of different ways. I've tried to learn how to work through those moments at work or in life or in writing or anything, and because it's just one of the most frustrating feelings I have.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

But I'm looking at you two guys, and you know, Drew, you just finished a novel. Pat, you're almost done. And both your works are so elegant and well done. And I'm looking at you thinking, what are you talking about? You've been stuck when I have watched and witnessed your creative process. So what are some of the things or what's your go-to when you feel like you're just spinning your wheels or your feet are in cement?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

I mean, remember, I I started writing in my 60s. So, you know, you could argue that I was stuck for 40 years in terms of really finally getting going- It's not encouraging. Finally getting going. But actually, I I didn't, you know, in in retrospect, I I think one of the things that I learned in this process is that there's a time for everything. And um, you know, I think that's true in a macro sense. And I also think it can be true in a micro sense. In a micro sense, when I'm stuck, I try to give myself this permission to say, well, but you're not always going to be stuck. You you can still do it. You know, you might not be able to do it at this particular moment exactly the way that you want to do it, but it doesn't mean it's forever, and it doesn't mean you're making a life, you know, a life decision. Um so give myself a little bit of a grace.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

What about you, Pat?

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Oh God, I don't know. I may have to go get a glass of water or something.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Or maybe something stronger.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

I don't know. I love what you're saying, Drew. You know, I go back, uh I know I mentioned this earlier, feels like a hundred years ago, but I think for me it's about what Ira Glass says, you know, that what freezes me is some part that imagines this person that I could be. You know, like when I read someone else's writing, then I think it's just amazing. You know, like what he said about your taste as the enemy of creativity. I think the willingness to make mistakes, the willingness, which you know, there is a kind of perfectionism underneath the resistance to that, obviously. But maybe that's it, is that I sort of convince myself that I don't know, the creativity police are not gonna show up if I do something, you know, just take a chance or you know, move my pen or do a you know, the like a paintbrush anything. Just do it.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

If it doesn't work, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I don't know. That image of the creativity police now is one more thing that might be an impediment to my creativity. I'm gonna just see them coming at me.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Well, I say that to my clients, actually. You know, the therapy police are not gonna show up if you don't know the answer to the Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

You know, Drew, you were talking about, well, this is now. Today might not feel productive. This week I might not feel so inspired, though I think we can all agree those uninspired moments, probably a lot is happening. We just aren't feeling it. And we're probably feeling the opposite. But on the other hand, I have seen and heard scary stories from people who like did not write for 10 years because they were stuck. And yet I have seen thousands of people talk about how they're stuck and write through it and get where they want to go without waiting 10 years. So there are, I believe, and I've witnessed ways to honor those parts of the creative process that feel like stuckness, but also to move through them in a much more fluid, graceful way. And it doesn't take away all the feelings of, oh, I don't know where I'm going. But there just really are hard and fast methods to get unstuck at some pace. We don't have to just be miserable for 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

But so I mean, uh one of the things that I actually learned from you, and I don't think it originated with you, but you you told me about it was this notion of rehearsal, you know. I think we've talked about before in an earlier uh draft. And I find that is super helpful to give myself permission that the first draft that I'm writing, I'm not getting hung up on craft. I don't need to be proud of every word, I don't need to be proud of, you know, this juxtaposition with that or whether this is the right amount of dialogue or mix or anything. I just give myself permission to sort of explore um or rehearse an idea or an a scene. And with very modest expectations that any of those words are going to make it into what would be a final draft. I just find that an enormously freeing thought for me to get unstuck because then I don't impose all my fears and my inadequacies and all of the things that kind of hold me down. It's like doesn't matter. This is a rehearsal.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Yeah. That's a good point, really. The other thing, I'm listening to what you guys are saying, is that it's tricky, right? Because it also maybe depends on how we are defining the creative process, that it isn't necessarily just tied to outcome or um, you know, that what I realized, for instance, actually, is that there during periods maybe when it did feel that I was kind of stuck, I actually was thinking a lot about what I wanted to do. And that in itself was part of my creative process. And I mean I think that's true in a lot of ways, you know. I mean, that that's the other way of thinking about it is yes, it's important to know how or at least have some tools or resources about how to get unstuck. But I think it's also helpful to remember that what the creative process actually might look like for you as an individual, you know, noodling about it, for instance, or even dreaming about something.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

No, I like that. I think you're you're spot on there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

It's easy to say this as someone witnessing someone else's creative process, but I've seen this over and over. You're feeling stuck, you're feeling stuck, and I'm looking at you and I'm knowing you're not stuck at all, which doesn't mean I don't honor those feelings. And believe me, I have had them so many times. But it's exactly what you were saying, Pat. I know in the shower, on your walk, when you're playing with your grandchild, you are working on that narrative, that story. And the breakthroughs will happen often when you're not at a keyboard. So if we have adapted writer sensibilities, which means we're we're kind of always thinking about that story, even if we don't know we're thinking about that story, we aren't really stuck at all. We just feel that way. So we have to, in a way, recognize okay, this doesn't feel so good, but also not let it do us in because we actually are getting some way in. I have seen that. So as a writer, I can feel stuck and be very tempted to give up. But as a workshop instructor or friend of many writers, I can see, oh, you're not stuck at all. You're just not feeling that great about your writing right now. But let me tell you, you're writing. And then I see also the results of that stuckness, air quotes, you know. So yeah, yeah, there's so much writing that happens away from the keyboard. There's so much writing that happens when we feel like we're getting nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah. I think too, when it varies. Like if you've got a project you're working on and you've got um for me, one thing that helps me sometimes is some days I wake up and I don't feel like generating a new page or a new scene. But I'm perfectly willing to go back and revise a scene and think about that scene and play with that scene or or even final edit a scene. And then so I give myself permission at those times where boy, I just don't think I can generate the I just not I'm not feeling it right now. I just pivot a little bit and then I still feel super creative, and it is obviously super creative. And then the next morning I wake up and I'm ready to generate that scene. And maybe I'm in a rehearsal mode, and maybe I'm way it's way different than what I was working on the day before. Um so I try to understand my head space going into that time that I'm devoting to create something and sort of honor that or see where I'm at.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

You know, as somebody who often sees writers in six-week increments because of our six-week workshops, I feel like we can talk about some of these issues about being stuck, but you're not really stuck. But also people, including myself, want nuts and bolts help, you know. And I think it is worth it to offer some of those nuts and bolts help. For example, feedback get you unstuck. Deadlines get you unstuck, lowering the bar get you unstuck. Instead of saying, I'm gonna write a thousand words a day, I'm gonna write every day. How about you sit at your desk for five minutes a day? It gets you unstuck. So I'm always looking for those practical tips. I don't know, do you have something, Pat, like, okay, I gotta, I gotta write, here's what I know works.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

I mean, actually for me, you know, God, maybe it's my undiagnosed ADHD. I have no idea. But, you know, a deadline. Like I when I know that I'm coming to the workshop and I know that I've committed to submitting the work, that for me is really helpful. I don't think I could have done what I did otherwise. I know I've been in situations, let's say years ago when I was trying to write something else, you know, having a writing buddy where we were just accountable to each other, where all we did was email done. You know, that we agreed we'd write, let's say, a page every morning or every other whatever it was we agreed to, and then what we would do is when we had finished it, we will email the other person done. Right. And that was helpful, you know, that I had made some kind of commitment and they had made, you know, that we had done it together. And it had nothing to do with the content of what I was producing, but rather, you know, that there was some kind of someone on the other end who was paying attention, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Sometimes in workshops the first week, I'll invite people to tell me what you're doing at the workshop or why you returned to the workshop. And of course, I'm always hoping to hear, oh, your teaching is so inspired. And nine times out of ten, it's well, I need deadlines. Okay. I'll take it, but but it's a fact, isn't it? We all need deadlines, especially when we're doing something that's a creative endeavor. You know, I think it it gives it more merit or something, more value.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

But you know, I I just want to add something here that, you know, again, I'm thinking about people listening to this. And I was just thinking about, you know, when you're faced, it isn't necessarily maybe specifically an artistic endeavor, but it is creative. Maybe there's not a distinction between those two things. Where you have an idea about something, and let's say you just can't get past, you know, that there's a commitment to you know there's something on the other side of the psychic wall, so to speak, but you don't know what it is, right? And that it's a to me, it's a slightly different kind of stuckness. Like you don't even know what the road is, like the rehearsal is, in a way. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Drew, what about you? Tell me something you do that you know is gonna work for me and all our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

I found myself thinking uh two thoughts. One, um I was walking around the garden last night and I was looking at Barty had moved this tree peony, you know, which it hadn't been doing well in one part of the garden next to a different garden, next to a uh yellow pe tree peony next to a purple iris. And, you know, so these things had been existing in our life, you know, in these separate gardens for ten years and they'd been doing what they had been doing. But two years ago they got moved into this new space, and it is absolutely beautiful. And so I I kept thinking this is kind of a form of rehearsal or or play or or whatever. You can get these beautiful plants, you can put them in this garden. They can work or not work, you can give yourself permission to move them and change them and see beauty. So change perspective, you know, just just getting out of your current frame and kind of just giving yourself permission to dig up a plant and move it is a great way to get unstuck sometimes. Not just to look at something and say that doesn't work, just to say, oh, I wonder if I move that plant over here. What would it work? Would it be more creative? So that's one of the things. And then another thing I found myself thinking again, it's not about writing as we were talking, it was about work and innovating inside of a company and creating new products or new things. And so everybody, you know, sometimes they just bring their current worldview or their current uh assets or their current data that we have to a problem and they say, well, we can't do this. And so then what I often say to them is, okay, so let's just take all those constraints away. If we had the data or if we had this asset or with that asset, what could you do? And so instead of a world of scarcity where you're sort of limiting yourself, you know, can you create a world of abundance where you sort of just give yourself permission? Well, but I could do that or I could bring that here, you know. And that tends to free up, allow more innovation. And then you can solve the problem of is that even doable, or can I get that data, or you know, is that even possible? But when you're stuck, you're just putting those constraints on yourself, and then your world gets more narrow. And part of the job is to pull the constraints away, if that makes any kind of sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I think one symptom of being stuck is we just are going to stare down that screen and bully it into submission. And so I love what you're saying. The when we open it up, when we start asking questions, when we introduce something unlikely, when we write outside the story, when we accept the magic and mystery of writing from a prompt, that's when I think the flow really starts to move along. One of the definitions of creativity is the juxtaposition of unlikely things. And I'm thinking of your flower analogy. And so, and yet that is something I think we have to really assert because we really just want to write linearly or think linearly or think logically. And in the throws of a good part of the creative process that works against us, and that's where we hit that wall and we feel stuck. So unlikely stuff. Move the plants, bring in something outside the story, forget about what's coming next in your narrative, and just write a what if?

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

That really I've seen help myself and other people.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

I love that story of the moving of the plants.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

It was just last night after a five-hour drive home and you know, a beer walking through the yard. It's like, wow.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

I really I really do. I love that story. And I I'm thinking about, you know, well, you can't take the shrink out of the shrink, I guess. And why would you want to do that? Why would you want to do that? Well, you know, because I'm just thinking about what if we're not wired that way, or our world view doesn't necessarily include that automatically, let's say, you know, that you can move the plants metaphorically, right? Like how do we get there? How do we see ourselves as that kind of person who can do that? I I don't know that I have a formulaic answer for that, but I think I I'm thinking really of so many people in that I've worked with over the years who I think ironically had a longing to be the person who would move the plants. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Sometimes it's really risky to move a plant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Yeah, exactly. No, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Boy, I have heard so many workshop participants raise this question. Can I do that? You know, if they want to switch points of view, but can I do that? Yeah. Or if they want to tell a certain type of story, can I do that? And I think that you're right, that's ingrained in us, that cautiousness, and and why wouldn't it be ingrained in us? You know, experimentation and openness, you know, isn't really honored sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Some of us there are people who had a secure enough something that it that's not ingrained in them.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Good.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah. Well, the woman the woman who moved the plants.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah. There's something that, you know, in terms of getting unstuck that we haven't talked about. And it almost doesn't have to do with creativity. It just it transcends creativity. And I think one of the things that really helps me and probably many, many, many other people, is simply being in the habit of practicing our creativity. There's nothing magical about the word habit, but I think the more we establish and ingrain a habit of working every day on our stories and almost forget about, well, is it creative or not, the more we're going to write something creative and inspired. But that I think cannot be undervalued. Establishing a habit where you go to that garden frequently or that writing desk or the kitchen or wherever. And that is something that I have lived and breathed because I have had long periods where I was in the habit of writing. There was no choice. I just went. And there was not much emotion about it. I just went and wrote. And I have been in long periods where I lost the habit. And man, guess when I've been not creative. Yeah. So there is no undervaluing the need for habit.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

That's a really good point. That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

And I think that's where getting feedback or having deadlines that helps to establish a habit.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Writing is, you know, I usually write in the morning, you know, usually from six something to eight something. And it's just even if I write ten words or edit something, or I'm not reading the paper, I'm not reading email, trying to do business things, I'm not, I'm trying to give myself that. Some days magic happens and some days it doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

But what would you call that, right? If if you were gonna not to put you on the spot, like what you just described, right? And what you're talking About Joni, like that showing up, you know, that what you just said about what you do. Let's say what what would you what would you call that? What is it you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 22:11

I mean, showing up is not a bad word or caring. You know, it's just sort of like, you know, half a life is showing up or something. So said that, but it's just like, okay, I care enough about this that I'm gonna show up and do this. It's just something that I'm gonna commit to. And it might be like going to the gym if that's something you it could be it could be anything. Um but I think it's everybody's different, you know. So I I I hate to be prescriptive, you know, that because what works for one person probably won't work for another person. For me, I need a little bit of structure and saying, I'm going to do this during this time. And um if I just say, Oh, I'll just tuck this in here or there or the other thing, and then I get really busy or you know, I get fascinated with moving a gar plant in the garden or you know, chasing after a grandkid or something like that, and then all of a sudden I haven't done it. And um and then I didn't I don't do it the next day, and then I don't do it the next day, and then all of a sudden I start thinking, I can't do this. It's too busy, I'm too crazy, it's not gonna happen. If I take the other attitude and say, This is my time, I'm gonna do this, then even if I don't do much, I still feel okay, I've honored that part of myself and I've given myself the space to to do that.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

I'm I'm thinking about the word promise. A promise is something that is in the future that you're committing to even though you don't know whether you want to or not.

unknown 23:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Yeah, I like that word. You know, I agree, Drew. We don't necessarily well, I do want to be a little prescriptive. You know, I think we've all witnessed enough artists at work or not at work to kind of see overall what works and what doesn't work. But I do feel like the one thing we have to recognize is if you don't establish some kind of habit, you can't just wait around for the muse to come.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

You know, well, I don't feel creative, I won't write today. So I do feel like that is something that really has to be instilled in a creative practitioner is some kind of habit because when people just sit around and wait for the muse, yeah, it it doesn't quite.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

You know, that I guess what I'm saying is the habit could be very different for any person. What what its habit for meme would be a different thing.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Well, I actually love that you're saying that too, because for example, there are other things that are prescriptive that drive me nuts. If you're a writer, you write every day. And then you miss a day and that's the end. You're just like, well, I guess I'm not a writer, you know. And so that does work for some people. I'll write every day. But it could work equally well. I want to write three times a week. I want to write for 20 minutes a day. I want to write a thousand words a day. I want to try to get to 150 words a day. So in that sense, it has to mirror your own creative process. It has to give you both grace and discipline, or it won't work at all. And I think that's just such an individual choice. How people establish those habits and get past procrastination or doubt.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

So there's something about creativity that is sort of also just sometimes when I'm stuck, can I get up a level? Can I think about the problem just a little bit differently and not just confine myself to why won't this scene work? Why can't I get this product from point A to point B? Or you know, like for me, the way it works is just to try to reframe it, to kind of take it up one level and see the problem, just twist it a little bit and see it as get it out of its the thing that's making it constrained. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And sometimes to do that, I think that it's as simple as getting up and getting a drink of water.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Could be, yeah. Or going for a walk around the block. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

And I yeah, I do feel like that staring down that screen, that's when you want to just get up a little bit, not for three hours, not to abandon the project, but move.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

It literally will move your mind a little bit. I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

We've talked about external things that can help with being stuck, like deadlines or feedback, um, doing certain things that can engender a habit of writing, but we've also talked about internal mindset kind of things, like thinking of rehearsal drafts versus just, oh my gosh, this has to be really good and you know, I have to get it right the first time. And you had mentioned the word framing, Drew. One last thing I want to say about this is sometimes in terms of the things we can do between our ears that help me is how I frame writing itself. For example, instead of going to my desk and saying I have to write for whatever reason, because somebody's waiting for it or whatever, it really can help me to frame it differently and think, I get to write today. I'm grateful I can write. And so that's something I wanted to make sure to say before we close the podcast is obviously that's a mentality issue, but boy, has that helped in so many things that I really want to do that have high risk because they matter to me, but to frame it differently in that I get to do this. Thank you that I get to do this. So I did want to bring that in.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

I really like that. Me too. That's a great I really like that. Great way to end this conversation. Yeah, boy, talk about putting the what is it called? Cherry on the ice cream. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

That's a rehearsal draft of that metaphor. We'll work on that. We'll work on that off my account.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Listeners, thanks for tuning in to Dead Frog in the Driveway with Pat Williams, Joni Cole, and myself, Drew Rockwell. We hope you join us for more stories and conversation that explore our creative intelligence and how we can all expand our thinking, ideas, and imagination. Plus, if you'd like a heads up about future episodes, make sure to subscribe to Dead Frog in the Driveway wherever you listen to podcasts. Go figure. Subscribe to Dead Frog in the Driveway.