When the Well Runs Dry
Imagine your mind as a large plot of land. It's blank, it's fertile, and it's all yours, to till and cultivate and farm. You can grow whatever mindcrops you like-- the corn of mathematics, the wheat of grammar, the dingleberries of My Little Pony fun facts. After all, it's your braindirt, and you can sow whatever seeds you like.
Growing crops isn't the only function of this plot of land, though. Oh no. Far beneath the mental topsoil is a water table of creativity. We all have our own little aquaducts into this creativity pool-- painting masterpieces, coming up with elaborate cookie recipes, or illustrating My Little Pony erotica (WARNING: click with extreme caution. Some things cannot be unseen.)
When we devote time and energy to our creative outlets, I see this as digging and shoring up the well that goes down, through the layers of mindsoil, and into the creativity.
Ideally, the well would be deep enough and strong enough to provide plenty of delicious, refreshing creativity for all your artistic needs.
But what about when things don't go right, and you find yourself with an empty well?
You could dig deeper. Immerse yourself in what you're doing, try harder, and power through that bedrock, to a deeper level of creativity. This might mean writing when you don't feel like it, or taking time to draw even when you aren't inspired.
You could wait. Some wells can only produce so many gallons per minute. If you're anything like me, you might find yourself constantly pumping from your well, drawing every drop of creativity as quickly as possible. But there's nothing wrong with needing time to let the well refresh. You can even help it fill up faster by giving your mind a much-needing watering, by reading, going for a walk, listening to music-- anything that inspires you can help put water back into the well.
Or you can drill a new well. It might be that you've perfected a well for writing about cats, but your writing-about-cats well is dry now. Maybe you've got a neglected little crocheting well over in the corner there, though, that's full up. Switch wells. Crochet, or write about crocheting, or draw a picture of a crochet hook. Find a new way in, basically.
My sparse posts on this blog are partially due to the fact that I don't know what else to say about writing. Aside from updates about my own personal writing, I'm not sure what to talk about. There are so many great writing advice blogs out there (and I wrote about some of them here). And lately, honestly, giving writing advice just hasn't interested me much. I'd rather be ranting, or writing fiction, or searching eBay for tiny shoes because I like dolls and I don't like them to have bare feet.
I'm not sure what to do about that, to be honest with you. I do know that blogging regularly is one of my resolutions for this year. And towards that end, I've started a new blog that has nothing (or very little) to do with writing. I'm not abandoning Palabracadabra, Palabrakazaam, by any means. I just may be shifting the focus slightly. We'll have to see.
I hope you all had an excellent holiday season, and I wish you a very happy New Year. May your mindgrapes be plentiful and juicy in 2016.
Growing crops isn't the only function of this plot of land, though. Oh no. Far beneath the mental topsoil is a water table of creativity. We all have our own little aquaducts into this creativity pool-- painting masterpieces, coming up with elaborate cookie recipes, or illustrating My Little Pony erotica (WARNING: click with extreme caution. Some things cannot be unseen.)
When we devote time and energy to our creative outlets, I see this as digging and shoring up the well that goes down, through the layers of mindsoil, and into the creativity.
Ideally, the well would be deep enough and strong enough to provide plenty of delicious, refreshing creativity for all your artistic needs.
But what about when things don't go right, and you find yourself with an empty well?
You could dig deeper. Immerse yourself in what you're doing, try harder, and power through that bedrock, to a deeper level of creativity. This might mean writing when you don't feel like it, or taking time to draw even when you aren't inspired.
You could wait. Some wells can only produce so many gallons per minute. If you're anything like me, you might find yourself constantly pumping from your well, drawing every drop of creativity as quickly as possible. But there's nothing wrong with needing time to let the well refresh. You can even help it fill up faster by giving your mind a much-needing watering, by reading, going for a walk, listening to music-- anything that inspires you can help put water back into the well.
Or you can drill a new well. It might be that you've perfected a well for writing about cats, but your writing-about-cats well is dry now. Maybe you've got a neglected little crocheting well over in the corner there, though, that's full up. Switch wells. Crochet, or write about crocheting, or draw a picture of a crochet hook. Find a new way in, basically.
My sparse posts on this blog are partially due to the fact that I don't know what else to say about writing. Aside from updates about my own personal writing, I'm not sure what to talk about. There are so many great writing advice blogs out there (and I wrote about some of them here). And lately, honestly, giving writing advice just hasn't interested me much. I'd rather be ranting, or writing fiction, or searching eBay for tiny shoes because I like dolls and I don't like them to have bare feet.
I'm not sure what to do about that, to be honest with you. I do know that blogging regularly is one of my resolutions for this year. And towards that end, I've started a new blog that has nothing (or very little) to do with writing. I'm not abandoning Palabracadabra, Palabrakazaam, by any means. I just may be shifting the focus slightly. We'll have to see.
I hope you all had an excellent holiday season, and I wish you a very happy New Year. May your mindgrapes be plentiful and juicy in 2016.
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