Ask the Author–What do you do to spark your creativity?

Halloween is over, and life is slowly getting back to normal as the sugar rush dies down. By now, the candy is either well hidden or devoured, and thoughts turn to Thanksgiving. I really love Thanksgiving. But that’s a few weeks off. Now it’s time for the first post of the month, which is an author question.

“What do you do to spark your creativity?” 

For me, creativity ebbs and flows. Some days it just gushes out so plentifully that I can’t even keep up with it, and other days I’m lucky if I’m creative enough to write a simple sentence in a story. On the days it just floods in, I don’t have to do anything to spark my creativity. I just have to try to keep it from going to waste. On the days I feel lacking in creativity, there are a few things I like to do. When I need more creativity than I have, I…

Read another favorite author’s work. Sometimes somebody else’s creativity can be a catalyst that helps ignite mine

Go back and read one of my favorite passages I’ve already written. If I can get excited about the story and characters again, it motivates me to keep going.

Skip ahead and write something I can already picture. Sometimes knowing exactly where I’m going helps me see how to get there.

Hang out with the characters. The better I know my characters, the better I know their stories.

Write something else. It might be a short story related to the story related to the big story, or it might be something entirely different, but sometimes a change of creative scenery can do the trick.

Do something creative besides writing, but still related to the story. Sometimes I draw a picture, sometimes I design a costume or make models of people or things in the story. This can help me get into the story without worrying about the perfect words yet.

Find another person to help me talk through it. Sometimes voicing things out loud can help the picture come together, or the other person might say something that gives you the idea you need.

Do another activity unrelated to writing or my story. Whether it’s taking a shower, washing dishes, or driving somewhere, good ideas seem far more likely to come when it’s impossible to write them down. (Or at 3:00 in the morning when you desperately want to be asleep.)

Of course, none of these is a guarantee that creativity will cooperate, but they seem to help sometimes. Others might have different things they try, but these are my favorites.

What do you do to get creative?