Color Outside The Lines

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." -Albert Einstein

As I write this article, I am a couple of days past having submitted the manuscript for my fourth book. You will hear more about the book as the days progress, but writing it had the usual ups and downs. I am not a very disciplined writer in respect to creating an outline to frame a story. I do get a general idea in three or four parts of how I want the story to flow. But then I simply begin writing, letting words flow from inside like water flowing from a spigot.

Sometimes though, the spigot gets turned off with barely a drip of water. The flow stops and you could definitely call it "writers block." It is a frustrating thing to go through because the harder you try, the more void that occurs. It happens to many people so I know that I am not unique in that sense.

It was interesting recently to find that a sister-in-law of mine, very talented in the arts, was having something kind of similar happening. We were gathered as a family due to the recent passing of my mother-in-law. The siblings and their spouses all sat around eating, drinking wine, and talking about our lives with Mom. So I was surprised to hear my sister-in-law indicate that she had gone dry in her creativity. She was struggling to find the inspiration that would turn the spigot back on.

A brother-in-law offered a very good idea that can push you to creativity as well. The method is to force yourself into a deadline. In example, I had a deadline in order to get my manuscript completed. That can be a very good motivational thing, but a lot of times it doesn't unleash the creativity of the writing. I could tell that deadlines were not what she wanted or needed at this point in her life.

She then told us a story about her mother. One day when she was quite young, Mom was sitting with her at the table, chatting as a mother and daughter do. Mom was coloring in her daughter's coloring book. The story sounded as if they were talking about life in general and as they talked, the coloring Mom was doing was outside the lines.

Now most of us have taken crayons to a coloring book when we were young. We are instructed to stay inside the lines and use the various colors to fill in the picture. But this time Mom was coloring the areas outside the lines. I had to stop and think about what my sister-in-law was saying.

It occurred to me this was an expressive way of saying, "think outside the box." Step back and look at things differently from what conventional wisdom tells us to do. In my regular job, when troubleshooting a technical problem, when all logic fails, I employ this same method. You might call it "whacky" thinking or even "crazy" ideas, but it works. Like a broken record, trying the same thing over and over keeps you in the same spot.

I told my sister-in-law to keep after it, the creativity will come back. Take a piece of paper, just start pushing ink lines across the empty space of white. Crinkle up the paper, unfold and neatly fold it, wet the edges, and maybe end up throwing it away. Just change up what it is you are doing.

My own writers block got solved during the writing of my book by simply writing random words. I began typing cryptic and nonsensical phrases, and then printed it out and drew on it. An example is shown below. Don't ask me how it works but it works for me.

It takes several of these to get it happening again. Sometimes it is other things, but what it takes is thinking outside the box. Trying something different can be the thing that sparks a change. What we need to do though is change it up, don't sit and wait for it to happen. Movement causes change, movement will give you the chance to intersect with opportunity, and movement will keep your life moving forward.