Making it Rain Inspiration: Spinning Your Wheels in Mud?
Did you expect the New Year to roll in, bright and shiny and full of new inspiration and promise? Have you been meeting up instead with sluggishness and resistance?
Perhaps you’re finding yourself, as Alicia Paulson writes:
This time of year is like some kind of no-man’s-land. So strange. I think it happens every January, that feeling that you’re revving your engines, ready to go, and still — nope. Spinning wheels in mud, somehow.
For me, this happens most often when I’ve decided the way the writing will go. That it must go my way or no way. And so I am left spinning my wheels in mud.
There’s really only one way out of this predicament. And that’s to shut off the car engine, climb out of the car, and wait for the ground to dry. Sure, you could call a tow truck or wedge something beneath the wheels, but think of it this way–when the ground is still muddy, you’re just going to get stuck again. When you wait until the sun’s come out, and the ground is solid again, you won’t get stuck.
So, if you were expecting the writing to flow, the website to fall into place, the marketing slogan to crystalize, all because it’s January, gosh-darnd-it and doesn’t that mean anything anymore? Know this: it will happen. The ezine writing will happen, the website design will materialize, the slogan will trip off your tongue… Eventually.
For now, explore the other posts in the Making it Rain Inspiration series, and just shut down the engine and wait it out. It can’t not happen, but sometimes, it takes just a little bit more time than you really want it to.
And tell me, are you feeling a bit stuck in the mud or are you full steam ahead?
Making it Rain Inspiration: Take the Test
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
I did something I’m still regretting, but fortunately it’ll be all over tomorrow: I signed up to take the GRE. What on earth was I thinking? It was a combination of a couple things–I didn’t take the SAT, and am curious about what that sort of test is like; and I’m starting to feel more interested in an item from my someday maybe list (“Get an MFA“)… So, on a whim, I signed up to take the test, paid my money, and promptly put off studying for the darn thing.
Until this weekend. So, here I’ve been, studying like a fiend, and very much needing a break from antonyms and math.
Interestingly enough, among the study breaks, I also managed to sketch out a flash video presentation/cartoon, write a sales letter for a client, entertain a neighbor with my rant about exactly why the GRE is so enormously unfair (it’s been nearly 10 years since I graduated college–do they really think I still remember any of this stuff?!), and jot down article ideas for no fewer than 13 solid Thrive Your Tribe articles. In other words, I’m bursting with business/writing inspiration. All because of a silly test I signed up for on a whim.
You already know that when you’re lacking for inspiration you need to try new things, or get out of your comfort zone, or try something that’s just a little bit scary. But, I bet you didn’t realize that taking a test can also jostle you right into creation.
Part of it is the deadline-orientation–I’ve only got until tomorrow to study those vocabulary words and figure out what on earth that funky flower symbol means in math (seriously, I’ve never seen it before in my life…) which means that my brain is crackling with all the stuff I’d rather be doing, including adding to that list of potential article ideas and outlines.
But there’s more to it than that. From the questions themselves to the looking for relationships between pairs of words to the reminding myself of all the different definitions of any one specific word… My brain’s making connections and firing synapses and doing whatever else it is that brains do and all of that activity and chaos is leading to creation and inspiration.
So, if you need some motivation to get really, really inspired in 2009, dive in and sign up for a big test. It can be related to your profession, or related to a goal you’ve set, or completely and entirely unrelated to anything–all that matters is that you sign up, (study) and take it.
What do you think? Test taking as inspiration–completely bogus? A useful idea? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Making it Rain Inspiration: Turn off the forecast
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
Here we are, in the middle of winter in North Carolina, and the weather has been gloomy, gloomy, gloomy! Sure, there’s been some rain, but it’s mostly just been cold and cloudy. Every night, I check the weather forecast to see what to expect tomorrow, hoping it won’t be more of the same. Now something you only know about North Carolina if you’ve lived here for awhile is this: the weather is impossible to forecast here.
I’m a Santa Barbara, California girl. I’m used to the forecasters promising sunshine and temps in the 70s all week… And being right. But, even when I lived in Arizona, where the weather was a bit more adventurous, they were pretty accurate much of the time. Here in North Carolina, though, they get it right every 8th day of the week or so 
.
So, whether the forecast is for sunshine, rain, or clouds, it really doesn’t matter. My checking the forecast does little except give me false hope. Because the reality is this: tomorrow, the weather will be as it is. No more, no less.
And the same is true with your writing. Tomorrow, the writing will be as it is. Maybe it’ll be easy. Maybe it’ll be hard. Guessing at what it’ll be tomorrow won’t have any impact on what it actually *is* tomorrow.
Turn off your predilection to forecast. Set aside that feeling that “I don’t know what I’ll write about tomorrow, so therefore it’ll be hard” or “I have this great idea, so therefore it’ll be easy.”
While you’re at it, you might turn off the news, too 
.
Making it Rain Inspiration: Kill Perfection
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
Welcome back to the imperfect series on finding inspiration when you’re out of inspiration. Today’s tip is short and sweet: Let it be imperfect.
All too often, we get caught up in the refinement stage, in the making things right, fixing them, perfecting them. It’s easy to do–after all, we want to do our best work and we want things to be “just so” for other people. We want our readers to think well of us, but more than even that, we want to communicate clearly and not be misunderstood, we want our readers to have an easy time reading our articles, and we want our writing to make a mark on the world–all of which, we believe, only happens when we do “good work.”
Don’t confuse good with perfect
Unfortunately, we often confuse good with perfect, and we also often forget that simply getting it out there will move it towards refinement. Whether a big computer platform (like Vista), or a small article (like this one), making the project available to others is one simple way to revise. Letting your readers interact with your work, letting them misunderstand and make a mess of what you’ve written–all of that can make you a better writer.
In fact, it was in writing this particular tip that I found the source of my own inspiration drought, and perhaps you can relate. As someone who’s been so prolific, and as someone who’s considered to be a really good writer… I was starting to feel like everything I wrote had to be at a certain (very high) standard. And not only is that impossible (we all write crap, some of us, more than others), but it’s also not a heck of a lot of fun.
Don’t move the baseline
When you’re new at this, those great articles stand out as a fabulous accomplishment. But, when you’ve been doing this writing thing for awhile, instead of letting the great articles be accomplishments, you start to think they have to be the baseline. And it’s true, your writing has improved and will continue to improve. But, that doesn’t mean everything you write will be great.
So, let yourself be imperfect. Let yourself write crap. Be okay with your especially spectacular articles *not* being your baseline.
What do you think? Is this the cause of your inspiration drought, too? If not, don’t fret, just keep doing these three things, and check back with me in a few days.
Making it Rain Inspiration: Be Honest
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
Think your article topic is a challenge? Try promising people inspiration and see just how quickly the writer’s block sets in. And that brings us to our first two tips:
1) Get really, really honest. Have you noticed lately how much people are swinging between “Things are great!!” and “Times are hard.” Sure, “the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” (F. Scott Fitzgerald) BUT when it comes to creating content and staying inspired, you’ll find integrity of thought goes a long way to ensuring output.
So, start by focusing in on the core of what you want to communicate, and let yourself be as vulnerable as you need to be. With a topic like inspiration, for instance, the truth might lie in admitting that you’ve been feeling uninspired lately, or that you find inspiration a bit of a hackneyed concept or that you sometimes feel like inspiration is completely wrapped up in luck and there’s really not a lot you can do to bring it into your life. You don’t necessarily have to share any of this in the final article, but getting it out of your head and onto the paper (or screen) is often enough to let you see new ideas and make new connections.
An important caveat: don’t use honesty as an opportunity to show you have something in common with the “little people” who read your articles. Don’t condescend to your readers by pretending to be honest. Actually *be* honest. This is really easy to see in other people’s writing, but can be a bit trickier to actually catch as you’re doing it, so here’s what I do to try to stomp out any false honesty in my writing. The more sure you are that a piece is truly genuinely honest, the more likely you need this step.
Let the article sit for at least two days. That’s all. Just put it away somewhere and don’t think about it. Then, come back to it, re-read it, and ask yourself whether the piece is true. Not if it “feels” true. Not if it “sounds” true. But if it is. It sounds easy (and it usually is), but you’ve got to actually do it, if you want to return often to the fountain of honesty as inspiration.
2) Admit the challenges inherent in the topic you’ve selected (or in the topic you usually write about). Every topic has challenges–maybe it’s been written about so much before and you don’t think there’s anything new to say, or maybe it’s obscure and difficult to make relatable, or maybe there’s not a lot of hard evidence to back you up, but you really believe in what you’re saying…
Whatever the challenges of your particular topic, when you’re struggling to feel inspired, it often helps to get all those challenges down on paper. Sometimes, you’ll actually find the article is borne out of this list (like in this case, where my sharing the challenges I was seeing with the topic of inspiration actually lead to this technique for using those challenges *as* inspiration). More often, though, simply acknowledging all the reasons why you “can’t” or why it’s too hard, is enough to let your brain stop pouting and start creating.
So dear inspiration seeker, do either of these approaches appeal to you? In what way?
And, if they totally miss the mark, don’t fret–not every inspiration cure is right for every inspiration drought. Go back to doing these three things for the next few days (every single day, remember), and check back in for the next inspiration cures.
Making it Rain Inspiration: Get Busy
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
If you’re in an inspiration drought, there’s one obvious way out: Make it rain. But how do you make it rain? Especially when you want not H2O to fall from the sky but big drifts of lovely, ready-to-go articles and content?
If all you need is a bundle of enjoyable exercises for getting creative in your writing, you’re not in a drought, and you’ll find these tips to be way too much work. Instead, get a copy of my tiny guide and ignore these tips. But if you’re in a full-on, desperate drought, you’re going to have to buckle down and sweat a little. The tips that follow won’t be easy, if you do them right, but they will bring the rain when applied repeatedly.
In the next few days, I’ll reveal the “hard” approaches. But first, whenever you find yourself in an inspiration drought, start with these three:
- Stop. Get up from your computer (shut *down* your computer) or notepad or wherever you’re writing or taking in information and give your brain a break. Maybe you’ll head outside to rake the leaves, or perhaps you’ll just take a nap. It doesn’t much matter what you do as long as you stop doing what you were doing.
- Color. Sometimes your brain needs a creative release that’s very, very defined. Coloring in a coloring book, sewing a quilt, painting a wall… Whatever tends to make you feel like you’re a) creating something; and b) not *being* creative will usually work. Something that results in an actual physical creation is usually the best choice. I’ve been doing all three and find that a coloring book and some colored pencils is the best way for me right now because there’s plenty of flexibility (I get to choose the colors!) but very little creativity (I don’t have to draw something first).
- Exercise. No matter how often you exercise, unless you never drive in a car or sit at a computer, it’s probably not nearly as much activity as your body craves. So, get outside and go for a walk or a run. Head out and play tennis. Go for a swim. Unless you really can’t exercise outdoors, though, I think you’ll find a treadmill (or, in my case, rowing machine) won’t be nearly as effective. Don’t listen to a book on tape, don’t take a notebook, just let yourself get completely caught up in the moment of movement. When you’re in an inspiration drought, you don’t need more input and you don’t need more output. You need more silence and you need more motion. No more, no less.
Remember, you must do these three things (and all three!) before you pick and choose from the suggestions I’ll offer over the next few days. Don’t take a shortcut by not starting here. Don’t think, “Oh, those things never work for me, so I don’t need them.” I don’t care that these three things never work for you (if that’s the case) because it’s not really about these three activities so much as it’s about following the rules. Just as a rain dance is an intricately choreographed ritual, so is this inspiration rain dance. It will work if you begin at the beginning and do the work straight through to the end.
So, today, begin at the beginning with me, and make time to take all three of these action steps. Then, tomorrow, join me here again for the “real” work of inspiration.
Are you suffering an inspiration drought?
This post is part of the Making it Rain Inspiration series. You can read all the posts if you’ve missed any.
You’re as tired as I am of all this talk about the economy and what it means to small businesses, no doubt. And I bet you’ve rolled your eyes at that 60% of Americans think a depression is likely statistic that’s been bandied about (and more or less made up/misquoted).
But that doesn’t change this fact: you might be mired in your own inspiration drought. I was. And many of my clients are. So, know that if you’ve been feeling a lack of inspiration and enthusiasm in your business, know you’re not alone.
The economy is hugely different today than it was in 1929. And these days, inspiration matters far more than it did back then. Face it, when people worked in factories, they didn’t exactly have to be inspired to do their jobs each day. But, as more and more of us work in creative jobs, inspiration becomes a key commodity.
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