Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Rebecca Beattie.  Something Rebecca said really resonated with me while we were speaking and that was her approach to creative blocks.  I’ve done episodes on creative blocks before (links below to previous episodes and blog posts on the website here: https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/series-five/57-rebecca-beattie-rediscovering-natures-seasons-amp-cycles if you want to have an explore) but I loved when she said ‘find where you’re not blocked.’
The idea of focusing on what is working rather than what isn’t, isn’t a new one but sometimes it can be so powerful to be reminded that blocks are a. not forever, and b. may not even exist at all.  It all depends on your perception.  The areas in which I personally feel most blocked when it comes to my creativity, and especially my writing, is in the actual action of creating.  I have all the ideas and all the notebooks containing many, many fragments of these ideas, but I often struggle to actually sit down and start.  I know for myself that I benefit from working with others in a writers’ circle, having a mentor or setting myself clear but small goals for anything I want to write.
You may not need this prompt right now, but I want you to bookmark it for the times when you might do in the future.
So, if you are feeling blocked creatively right now, I want you to do the following:

Firstly consider whereabouts you are blocked.  Which part of the creative process feels hard for you right now?  The beginning, the middle or the end?  Is it approaching one particular piece of work?  An article you want to submit, a poetry competition you’re trying to create something for, or writing anything at all down on the page?  Only you will know how to answer that.  For me, for example, I often feel blocked out of fear that what it is I want to create won’t be as good as I want it to be and that I’ll just let myself down and then be worse off than if I hadn’t started at all.  I often compare myself to others, telling myself that they, whoever ‘they’ are, could do it better than I could so I shouldn’t even start?
Secondly, to help you find where you’re not blocked, just create anything.  So, for me, that always seems to look like the morning pages, or some kind of stream of consciousness practice in which I just sit down, set my timer for thirty minutes, or tell myself I’m going to write just three pages in my notebook, and then start writing.  For you, it might be that you would benefit from experimenting in an entirely different way.  So, if you are a writer, do some doodling or painting, or play with clay.  If you're a painter, do some writing or sculpting and so on.  What about getting out into nature, collecting whatever natural objects, like pine cones or leaves, you can find and making some seasonal decorations.  Sometimes we need to totally change our perspective to jolt our brains out of this blocked state and return to ‘manufacturer’s settings.’
Lastly, do this for as long as you need to before you return to your regular practice or that piece you have been working on and can’t get through.  Perhaps return slowly and just create some small, manageable goals for yourself - one paragraph at a time, work on a different section of the story, poem, or piece you’ve been stuck on.  Take it slowly and see what happens.

The idea is that you give yourself whatever time is available to you (and I realise if you’re up against a deadline, things can become pressing!) to move through whatever has been getting in your way.
As I say, you may not need this right now, but feel free to save it and come back to it whenever you need.
Happy creating,
Helen x

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