A Writer's Insight Into Enhancing Your Creativity

G's up, hoes down.

Last week I promised ways of overcoming writer’s block. Over the course of the week I jotted down some proven methods of stimulating mental creativity… but I had a pretty big weekend and lost my notes somewhere along the way. I didn’t want to leave you all figuratively hanging, so instead I borrowed some reputable advice from my boy, Method Man:

1. Roll that shit.
2. Light that shit
3. Smoke it.

BAM. And the writer’s block is gone.

…

So I was skimming through our dubious previous entries in this blog, pondering my choice of topic for this week, when my eyes strayed to the page header. ‘We Are Not Creatives.’ For some reason I couldn’t look away. Leaning closer to the screen, I frowned, stroking my well-manicured goatee. ‘We Are Not Creatives.’ There it was! My chair clattered to the floor as I leapt to my feet in astonishment. Out of nowhere. A flash of genius. An e-motherfucking-piphany. It was like Newton getting that apple to the dome – only this was more profound. I ran from the room, eyes bulging, blog entry forgotten. My realisation? ‘We Are Not Creatives’ … forms the acronym … WANC.

I know, right? Oh, man. I feel like I’ve made a significant discovery. I’m like the Abel Tasman of sexually suggestive acronyms.

…

Sorry. I must be nearly be getting too old for this shit. Let us return to more important matters. Improving your writing.

Bettering yourself in any aspect of life is not a quickly accomplishable goal. The same goes for writing. It’s not easy. It takes time. I think you need quite a strong sense of self in order to identify your own writing weaknesses. Only once you know your own shortcomings can you take the first steps to improving.

So what is the quickest, most viable and least expensive way to improve your writing?

Practice.

If you’re grammar are horrible, practice. If you struggle with character depth, practice. If your poetry has all the beauty of Princess Di post-crash, PRACTICE.

Sure, some people are born with innate creativity and are naturally good at their chosen craft, but for everyone else we need to train our minds in the ways of the creative. I firmly refuse to believe that anyone is ‘bad’ (sup, subjectivity) at creative writing; simply they have not had enough practice.

(I was going to throw in an edgy sports practice analogy to get my point across, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. How original would that have been?)

Of course it’s unrealistic to expect anyone to sit down and write a complete piece of prose every evening, but just pen something once a week, once a day, whenever you can. Keep a diary. Start a fitness journal. Contribute vague, badly written posts to an online blog. Write. Do it.

I did these exercises in one of my classes called ‘fast writes,’ which encouraged the act of writing, rather than the quality of writing. In practise this meant writing (about anything) as quickly as possible for 15 minutes, with no regard for structure or coherency. It was an interesting task. Admittedly, I churned out more shit than a Rob Schneider movie marathon, but amongst the turds were some ideas with potential. I expanded on a couple of these fast writes and eventually developed them into (somewhat) reasonable short stories. Some good came out of it, unlike Schneider’s acting career.

Until next week, WANCers.