I Rekindled My Content Generator (My Brain) By Upgrading My Space
I was told this would work, but it didn’t make sense until I did it
So much of writing gets stopped up right between your ears. You can sit around and come up with idea after idea, but when you go to put it down in written form, it just leaves.
Or maybe it doesn’t, but your confidence wavers, and you quit. It sounds stupid. Empty. Meaningless.
Here’s an idea: change your environment.
Seriously. Do it.
I know, I know. You’re wondering how rearranging your furniture or adding/subtracting some lighting will make words seem smarter to you. More abundant. More free-flowing.
How it began for me
My mom was sick back in the fall. Deathly ill, judging by the early reports from doctors. She came down with pneumonia, and she just couldn’t shake it.
After several weeks, she finally broke down and had my dad take her to the doctor. She walked in the door, and the doctor took one look at her, turned her around, and sent her straight to the ER.
A month later, she was still in the ICU, and it wasn’t looking good.
Not to make any of that about me (I love my mom), but I was in the midst of a historic (for me) writing tear that had me on the verge of finally pushing a book to a publisher that has been bugging me for nearly two years to finish.
When she got sick, I stopped writing. I rushed from Florida to Arkansas to be by her side, help my dad around the house, and manage my drama queen sister’s histrionics so my parents didn’t have to deal with her.
Mom is much better now, but still learning to manage some more or less permanent issues that resulted from this — whatever it was.
I returned to Florida a few weeks later, went back to life at home and work, and wrote — nothing.
In fact, until the last few weeks, I couldn’t even bring myself to think about writing.
When I finally sat down to write, I couldn’t even type my name. My brain vapor locked, my hands went stiff, and my bare scalp broke out in sweaty beads of fear. I quickly clapped my laptop closed and fled to the safety of Netflix.
My selfless wife to the rescue
My wife is an artist. And I don’t mean that she’s just a free-spirited thinker who lives a light, flowery life. This girl creates. Name the art, and she has tried it. Name most, and she’s mastered them.
Her latest undertaking has been basket weaving. Here is an example of her completely hand-created work:
She’s the real deal. These baskets she makes sell for hundreds of dollars apiece online. Her studio took up one entire bedroom of our home, and she would spend hours every day in there just creating at will.
Notice the past tense used in the previous paragraph?
She reached a place of creative constipation herself and instantly knew what to do about it. She conscripted me into helping her completely move her studio downstairs to what used to be our large breakfast nook. It took several days and a lot of Tylenol to get her completely set back up.
Which left us with the voided shell of her former workspace.
I bet you can guess what happened next.
Since moving into this space and setting it completely up to my own taste, I have felt the urge to write again. I’m still not burning my fingers to the bone just banging out the words, but I have felt the urge to begin taking baby steps toward creative passion again.
My desk faces a double-paned window that looks out on the golf course right behind my house. The natural lighting pleases my mind’s eye more than the dankness of my little corner of our living room used to. The squirrels dart about in my backyard, stopping to look up at me from time to time with full cheeks and mischief in their eyes.
The 56-year-old Smith-Corona Electra 120 that I paid $25 for at a thrift store gives me that old-school, fedora-wearing vibe that mid-century writers used to just emote through nerdy glasses and hazy cigarette smoke. I don’t smoke (never have) and I have no idea if this typewriter even works, but I just love the look of it.
The point is, I needed something to jar me out of my own mental prison. I found it, and I’m writing again.
Make your own flow
If you can’t make yourself write, then make yourself change your environment. Freshen up your area, freshen up your mood and attitude, and start kicking out the words.
And hey, if you do all that work and still can’t write, then feel free to blame me. In fact, let me know about it in the comments so I can use them to write more pieces!
Frank Vaughn is a regional Emmy- and Associated Press Media Editors Award-winning journalist from Little Rock, Ark. He is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas with a degree in Speech Communication, and the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Md., with an emphasis in journalism and media relations.
