Writer’s Block? Try The Hemingway Solution!
Some days, writer’s block kicks in and the screen and I have a stare down. It usually wins, and I take a break until my creative juices start to flow. Turns out, it might be helpful if some other juices flowed, too. There could be good reason to add “becoming a wine aficionado” to your schedule of professional development.
When you remember all those times on the dance floor busting out moves you can in no way duplicate, this shouldn’t be a surprise. And if you have any memories, vague or otherwise, of things you’d never dare do when sober, there’s surely some validity. Because courage, bottled or other, gets us to try things and engage in levels of creativity we wouldn’t attempt in the light of sobriety. Okay, I admit it, this has it’s limitations. But moderation in all things, my parents taught me.
Medical Daily and a study called “Uncorking the Muse: Alcohol Intoxication Facilitates Creative Problem Solving” looked at all this in detail. The results were pretty conclusive. To quote Medical Daily:
“Ad men, musicians, and writers all do it. Drinking alcohol and creating things just seems to go together, and there’s scientific proof behind it.”
Further, there’s the problem with the stress that accompanies writer’s block. You know the stress of feeling you just have to get something written, but nothing is coming out. And the more you stress, the less seems to come. Until there’s not much more than a blank fuzziness in your brain. Yes, the more you stress about it the less the liklihood you’re going to produce anything. The Lit Reactor (as in literature) examined the nuts and bolts of stress and creativity and found ” high stress and pressure tended to kill creativity.”
More recently, The Expert Editor put all that together in a neatly summarized graphic, which is below. Since their conclusion includes the importance of editing with mass doses of coffee, I’m buying it pretty much completely. And some more wine!
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