Photo: Kelly Sikkema
I’ve been in a bit of a creative slump recently. It happens to us all. I thought I’d share something I’ve found that helps get the juices flowing.
This is going to sound a little silly but: start by intentionally creating something bad. Just do something random. If you’re a photographer, start by taking random photos. If you’re a musician. just loop some random audio and work it a little or record some random guitar and lyrics. Do anything you need to do to just get started.
This may not sound like much of a strategy, but I’ve found that once you get the ball rolling, it’s a lot easier to keep going. That jump from zero to one is incredibly more difficult than going from one to two. You’re overcoming inertia and giving yourself license to jam.
By giving your creation no intention, you set the standard by which you can actually create something decent, with intention.
Kill the critic. You need to silence that part of your brain that tells you that you need to create something perfect, or it’s not worth creating at all. Get into that experimental mode of creation.
This technique starts you down the path where anything is allowed, nothing is bad, and it’s all just raw material that you’re creating. it’s an incredibly liberating place to be—and exactly where you need to be to generate something interesting. You can always come back later with your critic’s hat on and slash and burn all the crap. But you need to get that crap out of the way, prime the pump so to speak, in order to make way for the good shit.
Plus, if you start by creating something intentionally bad, there’s only one place to go -- up. Let me know how this works for you.