Block #1: Skepticism
Often students roll into my creative writing classes with heavy skepticism. Sometimes this skepticism is aimed at themselves. “I’m not creative,” they tell me. Other times, the skepticism is aimed at the course itself. This is revealed at the end of the semester with a comment like: “I thought this class was going to be such bullshit, but it actually turned out to be valuable!”
Whether it’s aimed inward or outward, skepticism is usually a way of protecting yourself. If you doubt your own potential, you won’t feel exposed if you fail. If you doubt the potential of an experience, you won’t be disappointed if it’s not great. Skepticism lowers your risk—but it also can stifle your creativity.
Why do I think this? Consider the opposite of skepticism, a personality trait called “openness to experience.” Openness means being receptive to new ideas and new experiences. Open-minded people “tend to be intellectually curious, creative and imaginative.” In fact, some researchers in the field of creativity studies argue that openness is the key to creativity. In Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire contend that openness to experience is “the strongest and most consistent personality trait that predicts creative achievement” in both art and science.
Great, you might be thinking if you’re a naturally skeptical person. I’m doomed.
Actually, I’ve got good news for you. “We do know that personality change is possible,” writes Scott Kaufman in Scientific American, if you “want to change, and be willing to put in the hard work to repeatedly change your behaviors and habits. The good news, however, is that the latest science of personality suggests that . . . you can fundamentally change who you are.”
None of this is to say that you should never be skeptical, by the way. I’ll be the first to admit that skepticism and other forms of critical thinking can be helpful in the late stages of a creative project when you’re trying to locate and fix flaws. But early in the creative process, skepticism is more likely to be a toxic friend. She makes you feel safe, even as she’s smothering you. You think she’s protecting you, but really she’s closing you off from the world. She claims to be shielding you from disappointment, but she’s also blocking out ideas and inspiration.
Block #2: Waiting for Inspiration
Speaking of inspiration, here’s another common comment from students: “I wait for inspiration before I write. I don’t want to force it, because I might get writer’s block.”
The problem with that comment is not, as I used to think, a reliance on inspiration. The problem is in the word “wait.”
“Inspiration tends not to involve pure passivity,” according to researchers Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot. Rather, there is a positive relationship between inspiration and effort.
In other words, inspiration favors the active. The muse visits her devoted monk keeping an active vigil, not the guy who shrugs and says, If she comes, she comes.
When you write without feeling inspired, you aren’t “forcing it.” You are putting in the effort that summons inspiration. That effort doesn’t always take the form of writing, however. Inspiration is often facilitated by receptiveness to evocative influences like books and songs and paintings and thunderstorms and weird ceramic sculptures on your grandmother’s coffee table. (Look at receptiveness popping up again, by the way. Can you connect the dots back to openness?) When you read and listen to music and look at art, you are being receptive to influence that can spark inspiration.
Read, listen, look: all of these verbs denote action, not passive waiting. Inspiration may feel like a bolt from the blue, like when Paul the Apostle was struck blind on the road to Damascus, but keep this in mind: that life-changing bolt didn’t hit Paul on his couch; to get thunderstruck, he had to walk the road. So if you’ve been waiting around for inspiration, get off your ass and seek it (though, like Paul, what you find may be different than what you seek).
One more note about inspiration. Emerging writers and artists often think of it as a starting point: inspiration → work. So far, this little essay might seem to suggest the opposite: work → inspiration. But the truth is that the relationship between work and inspiration can be a virtuous cycle.
So if you want to be more creative (and really, who doesn’t?), ask yourself how you might be getting in your own way with these two blocks. Look for notes of skepticism and passivity in your outlook and habits. What would happen if you were more receptive? What would happen if you actively sought inspiration?
Are you open to finding out?