Every author hits creative dry spells, when you’re struggling with stalled ideas, lost momentum, or the dreaded “writer’s block.” How can you get creatively unstuck and relight your creative spark? Discover techniques for shifting your perspective, accessing fresh ideas, and restoring creative energy when your writing process hits a standstill, a menu of options for finding inspiration and getting back to the work.

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Not long ago I was in an exceptionally fertile creative place, where ideas were coming at me almost as quickly as I could write them down. I wrote about this recently and how I make notes in those times so that I have them to rely on at times when I am not as creatively agile.

Enter “one of those times,” an ebbing of the creative juices because like the seasons, the tides, political winds, and wide-leg jeans, all things are cyclical: there are times of plenty and times of lack, and I’m firmly in the latter camp now, a combination of feeling tired, juggling a lot of different projects, and repeated upending of my routines (which I’ll no doubt be writing about in a future post).

But the creative work must still be done. My blog post runs weekly, I have a class I’m working on developing, along with an upcoming intensive 10-week workshop, including all the logistics involved in the latter, all on top of my regular editing work. None of that is expendable, and all of it is on a fairly inflexible schedule.

So over the years I’ve developed a handful of strategies to relight my creative spark when it starts to sputter but I still need its illumination. I treat these approaches not as a to-do list but a menu, choosing which one works for me according to my circumstances and mood.

Feel free to sample off my menu, friends—and if you have some delicacies of your own to share with the group, please do!

I can bulldog it

I respond exceptionally well to deadlines, and knowing the work has to be done means I will by God get the work done. I buckle down and get serious, using tricks like an adapted pomodoro method, using my handy tip-timer (much like this one) to select a block of time, usually an hour, and work through without any interruption.

I build in rewards for when I finish: Five or ten minutes on email or to check texts (or browse online, if I’m feeling shoppy), brew more coffee, savor a Valrhona chocolate pastille, play with my dog, etc.

This “deep work” focus is, of course, based on Cal Newport’s excellent book by the same name, and it lets me (okay, forces me) to sink into a state of focused concentration that encourages both creativity and productivity.

I can reexamine my intentions

But if I’m too focused on gritting down and getting it done, I have found whatever I’m working on becomes a task I have to complete, and I can lose not only my pleasure and enjoyment in the work but my creative range. If all I’m doing is checking something off of my to-do list, it risks becoming dry and rote, absent the sparks that I think (hope!) set it apart.

I try to be mindful not to let myself fall into that churn-and-burn mentality, grimly plowing through tasks to get them off my plate or get caught up. That never results in my best work, and I certainly don’t enjoy doing it. And as regular readers may know, one of my guiding tenets—in my career and in life and…well, honestly, everything—is “find the fun.” Chores are rarely fun, and making my creative work a chore sucks the spark out of it.

That’s when I remind myself to quit concentrating on the result or product—the finish line—and instead turn my focus to my intentions: What is it I want to convey here, at the heart of the class or article I’m working on? What excited me about this in the first place, when I conceived or pitched or started this project? What puzzle am I trying to solve?

That reminder is usually enough to reignite the enthusiasm I initially felt for what I’m working on, and that almost always leads to more creativity and productivity.

I can break it down and take it in chunks

I often refer to what I call Revision Mountain—that daunting, impossible-seeming climb that looms before an author as soon as they write “the end” on a first draft—and advise authors to instead look down and just focus on a single step at a time.

That mindset reset is often useful to me when I’m creatively stuck too. Often it’s because I’m thinking of all the many things I have to accomplish, and all the many tasks involved in each. It’s overwhelming, it freezes me up, and it binds and gags my creative energy.

Instead of trying to poke at everything everywhere all at once, I choose a single project to focus on and subdivide it into smaller incremental steps: for my class, for instance, rereading my notes, creating an outline, seeking out appropriate examples of each concept I’ll be teaching, and then starting to build the deck one slide at a time.

Before I know it, I look up and I’ve made real progress up the mountain. But even more important, the work I’m doing is more productive and creative because it feels more manageable and focused.

I can shift gears

On a recent visit from my family last week (see earlier-mentioned upending of routine), my brother and I were talking about how much we both enjoy having a variety of tasks to work on, and setting ourselves new and different challenges in our jobs.

I find I can get bored if I do too much of the same thing for too long a time. It’s one reason I’ve always blocked off my creative time for mornings and my editing work in the afternoons. I enjoy the shift in thinking and the varying challenges of each.

When I find myself feeling a little creatively tapped I might change tasks more often, splitting my afternoon, for instance, between editing and working on a class, taking a break to work on a blog post, etc. (But also being mindful of the risk of scattering my energy and never making real progress on any one thing.)

This week I have two main tasks to focus on for my morning creative work: this blog post and a course I’m developing. I pulled up both to review them, and the blog post was the one that drew my attention—so that’s where I focused. It’s also the one with the more imminent deadline. Both have to get done, but I can customize my work based on my priorities and proclivities, and that sense of autonomy and enjoyment is key to doing my best work.

I can adjust my attitude

Recently reading about—please hold the eye rolls—focusing on gratitude, after some life events had me in a fairly snarly mood, shifted my perspective. I was dwelling on what was going wrong instead of all the many things going well.

In fact I reexamined my idea of “going wrong.” One of my favorite mantras is, “This is life.” We often default to a mindset that things should go a certain way—usually the way that suits our needs or desires—and anything else means something is wrong.

But all these demarcations are arbitrary. There is no right or wrong—there is just what is, and we put the meaning on it. Disciplines like Buddhism and meditation encourage us to reexamine our tendency to attach meaning to things that are simply facts, events…life. It’s our thoughts about them that add distress.

So yes, while I may sometimes feel things that aren’t wholly pleasant or desirable—stress, worry, frustration, etc.—to some degree I’m choosing those reactions. They are simply like the clouds passing over blue sky—the weather can and will shift, and I can actually influence that with my attitude.

These projects are all things I have to do, yes, but they’re also things I get to do. I remind myself that Hey, I read books for a living! I analyze them—one of my favorite things to do. I get to share what I observe and learn with other people and hopefully help them hone their creativity, a force I feel is one of the most marvelous and important ones in the world.

I can step away

After circling the drain for hours this past week while putting together the slide deck for my upcoming class, I realized I wasn’t accomplishing anything productive, just spinning ever deeper into a rabbit warren taking me off-track from a clear central throughline.

I again borrow a technique from Newport at times like this, who advises (along with pretty much every other productivity expert) that disconnecting and taking mental downtime is as essential to creativity as the work itself, two sides of a coin. He recommends a verbal signal to ourselves to indicate that the work is done for now, and dismiss it from our thoughts.

After my wildly unproductive day I used mine (“Disengage”) and took the night fully off: had dinner, went for a walk, watched movies with the hubs—no thinking about it, no worrying, no planning how I’d tackle it the next day. I went to bed and tried to get a good night’s rest.

Sure enough, ideas came in the night (interrupting my sleep, which isn’t ideal but I do keep a notebook on the nightstand for just such a reason), and I sprang out of bed early with a solid structure and spine in mind for the presentation. That day’s work was much more focused and productive—even though I had only an hour or two to fiddle with it, after a lengthy and enjoyable girls’ brunch with close friends—and I smoothly put half the slides together in a way I was delighted with.

I can have faith

My trainer and I were discussing our careers—he is also a self-employed business owner—and how our approach and attitude toward them have evolved. We were relishing the fact that at this stage, neither of us feels we’re trying to prove ourselves anymore: We know we have the skills and knowledge and experience necessary to succeed.

But more important, when we don’t—because no one knows everything and failure happens to us all—we have full faith in our ability to learn, adapt, or correct the problem.

Now, when I get frustrated with something I’m working out, or hit a dead end, or some new creative endeavor starts out as a disaster zone of piled-on ideas that aren’t cohering (as it always does! Construction is messy until it isn’t), I trust that I’ll figure it out.

Maybe not right away. Maybe it will take some time to wade through the morass, make order from chaos, create what I’m trying to create.

But I’ll get there.

Authors, will you share your own techniques for getting creatively unstuck? How do you recognize when that’s the problem, and detach from unproductive, creativity-killing self-judgment? What strategies do you use for getting your creative engine started again?

FoxPrint Editorial helps writers strengthen their manuscripts through developmental editing, education, and practical writing guidance. Explore more articles on revision, storytelling, and the publishing process.

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