I need to write an editorial about affirmative action and I have no ideas on how to start it or what to put in it. What are some ways to get the creative juices flowing?
- Supa Dupa Fly

has done a bunk, the creative juices have withered on the vine and to cap it all the cat has just poo’d on your last packet of A4. You feel as if all your ideas have scurried off like lemmings looking for the nearest cliff. But all is not lost. For one thing if you bin the top five sheets the rest are probably OK. For another if you try the tactic below, you could end up saying ‘Ha! Who needs a muse?’

Our creative minds are, in fact, our willing servants. The human race was made with a strong creative tendency and all we have to do is give a little push and ideas will suddenly appear, seemingly out of thin air. Oh, yes, it’s true!

Get mentally prepared.

Miracles do happen, and they will, but you must do your part. Tell yourself inwardly that you are going to enjoy this exercise, even if it kills you, and you will, I guarantee, come up with a stonking idea for a story.

Get physically prepared.

Arm yourself with a pen and paper, or sit in front of your computer with Word up and running, ready to make notes.

Get ready to be creative.

OK, this is it, so I need your full attention. In your mind’s eye, picture somewhere you know well and like. A park, a town, even your own house. Now imagine you’ve discovered a hidden door you didn’t know was there. You creep through and there it is. A secret place. Another world. Wow! Now, tell me what do you see? Who do you see? What are they doing? What holds your attention? Moves you? Amuses you? Disturbs you? Make notes quickly before it’s too late.

Maybe you see ordinary people, maybe you see giants, perhaps they’re pixies or gnomes, maybe they’re little green men with three eyes. And women of course. The women only have two eyes. The men need three eyes because … Well, let’s leave it there, we don’t want our imaginations running away with us. Just make notes.

Are they chatting, arguing, having a heated discussion, or just enjoying being together? What are they saying? What are they heatedly discussing? Latch on to something that moves or intrigues you and make notes.

What are they wearing? Fashionable 21st century clothes, torn ragged clothes, clothes from centuries ago? More notes.

Next introduce some action, something or someone that comes in from outside to change what is going on in the scene. The change is for the worse, which will cause ripples of action and reaction. Make notes.

Picture all this as clearly and colourfully as you can.

Here’s the psychology bit: This process is giving your mind the ‘food’ it needs to come up with an idea. Making those notes is of vital importance because it’s telling your mind that you are serious about this and it will oblige by working all the harder for you.

When you’re ready stop the exercise, take a deep breath, and review your notes.

The chances are you have the basis, to a greater or lesser extent, of a story. There’s also a chance that you will look at your notes and say ‘What a load of tosh!’ But before you discard them, I would urge you to look again, maybe after a nice cup of tea, and I’ll bet a pound to a penny there is some germ of an idea you can wrest from what you first see as a shambles.

Go for it!


- Mervyn Love

By Michael Alperstein

Writing gives you the opportunity to feel the rush of creative juices flowing, enables you to be heard, to be of service to your readership, and to clear your mind of extraneous thoughts and hone in on what really matters. But even on a good day, writing is challenging. Here are seven ways to help you access more creativity and increase enthusiasm for the writer’s journey.

1. Write in Different Mediums.

Although your writing will most likely end up in your word processor, be open to writing at least a percentage of the time in a different medium. Sit in a park and write in a notebook, try speaking into a recorder, or use an old typewriter. Even while using a computer, it is a great idea to stir things up sometimes: Try an unusual font or color, type with your non-dominant hand (some say this fuels creativity because it stimulates your right brain thinking), type super fast, or type very slowly, or experiment with different kinds of music while writing. It is also a good idea to print often and make notes in the margins. This gives you the bigger picture you need for clear and powerful writing.

2. Intertwine Reading with Writing.

If you feel blocked with your writing, go to the bookstore or library and read topics similar to the one you are working on. This is not so much an exercise in ‘comparing’ in order to feel that you can ‘do it better than them.’ The deeper benefit to gain from more reading is to realize the interconnectedness between writing and reading. School teachers often make reading and writing sound as if they are two totally different activities, but they are intrinsically connected. When you read, you open up and make space for new ideas to come into your mind. Writing is fundamentally no different.

One way to see the connection between the two is to practice active reading. Active reading is reading the text as text, not being fully absorbed in its meaning, and instead having a small amount of attention on learning new techniques and styles.

Use the connection between reading and writing to your advantage by dancing between them until you can sense their relationship. This short circuits writer’s block faster than anything I know.

3. Focus on Solutions.

Remember to bring your attention back to the solutions to the “problems” you see with your writing. Powerful writing is about turning attention inward to find new ideas amongst a field of infinite ideas. There is great benefit to re-focusing your attention in a surprising and positive new direction. This is done by putting attention on your inner data bank of writing tips: Show don’t tell, say more with less, keep the tension high for your main character, highlight the benefits to your reader, and so forth.

The primary consideration for editing your work should be: “What can I add or delete that will create a stronger next draft?” This question takes you out of self-judgment and into a solution mind frame.

4. Use Emotions to Fuel Creativity

Be it calmness, fear, or passion, any emotion can stir the creative pot and help you be a better writer. Realize there is a connection between your emotions and your future readers. Consider this: The quality of your emotional state while writing will impact the quality of the emotional state of your future readers. When your writing is flowing, direct your attention inward on the feeling of the creative flow and the emotions along with it. Bask in the flow. All your emotions will help.

For example, if you are writing a piece you hope will uplift readers, be as conscious and calm as possible while writing. See if you can tap into the feeling you want your readers to feel. Breathe. Stretch every now and then. The clearer and more at peace you are while you write, the clearer and more at peace your readers will feel down the line.

Similarly, if you are writing a thriller, do all you can to get your adrenaline rushing while you write. You might do some push ups, play loud music or write in candle light. Notice your body and posture. If you want future readers to be afraid, you might purposely breathe shallowly for a while or literally sit on the edge of your seat. Your body posture is important. It helps you transmute whatever you are feeling into creative inspiration.

5. Give Help to Another Writer.

Helping someone else is a great way to help yourself. There is an art to giving useful feedback. Here are some tips:

a. Help the other writer brainstorm new options. Suggest a different metaphor, another example, a new direction, or another word. Endeavor to open doors.

b. Ask questions: What is the significance of this paragraph? Could you explain this idea better? Who is your target audience? How do you want your audience to react to this?

c. Again, focus on solutions not on problems or personal reactions. For instance, if you are critiquing someone’s crime thriller and you start to lose interest, say “How about more danger here?” instead of just saying “I got bored.”

No matter what it is you do not like about the writing, know there is always a fix.

d. Keep it real. Express the negative in a way that encourages the writer to improve.

Distinguish your reaction from the writing itself. See your opinions as opinions, not external facts.

6. Get Help from Another Writer.

Hiring a writing coach or getting feedback from other writers will improve your writing better than anything I know. Or start or join a writing group. But you still need to stay true to yourself and write what is in your heart. There is an art to benefiting from other people’s feedback. Here is what I suggest:

a. Ask for the specific help you want. Do you want the other person to help you with character development? Organization? Grammar? Or perhaps you are ‘wide open’ to all input, which is fine, but it’s good to say this out in the open.

b. The sting! How do you handle it if the feedback you receive is negative? You dig deeper and rewrite! When someone points something out about your writing that you couldn’t see, it is a gift to you no matter how much it may sting at first. But you still need to stay true to your own message. Maybe you keep your writing the way it is and calmly reject the feedback. Be grateful to the other person for reassuring you that you are already on the right track with your writing. You know what you want to say. Stay true to your craft.

7. Put Your Writing Out There.

Be willing to say goodbye to perfectionism and share your writing with others. Share it for the joy of being seen or the joy of being of service to others. It’s not easy to go public, but it can get easier. One way I have found to make it easier is to reflect upon the following idea: To share writing with a small number of people is not fundamentally different than sharing it with a large number of people. For example, suppose I share a writing piece with three other people: One person dislikes it; one thinks it’s okay; and one loves it. The feelings I experience when I hear their responses can be just as intense as if I shared my writing with thousands of people! Suppose ten thousand people disliked it, ten thousand thought it was okay, and ten thousand loved it. I am not necessarily going to feel different than I did with three people.

Explore this yourself. Above all, trust your own perceptions and instincts as you go public with your writing and you will successfully navigate outer opinions.


- Michael Alperstein

Congratulations! You have begun your viral marketing campaign by writing and submitting articles that have been spread throughout the world through ezines, blogs, and other online publications as others picked up your articles and posted them on their own pages. Two or three times a week you sat down to write and hardly knew how much time had passed from the moment you began writing until you finished. The time went quickly and you remembered how much you enjoyed writing. The ideas flowed and there seemed to be no end to the number of thoughts you could put in print.

You watched your stats for each article, did a Google search for your own name and articles, and were excited by the results you found. Even your “expert” status gave you a high and made you feel good about this new venture you were on. And each day the adventure continued.

Then suddenly one day you sat down to write and nothing came to your mind or you started writing but your thoughts were disjointed and jumbled. The ticking of the clock was there to remind you that hours had passed and the piece of paper or the computer screen before you was half empty. In an effort to complete the article, panic set in and then there were no words, no ideas, no third point to support the main theme (and everyone knows you have to have at least three points to support your theme, don’t they?).

If writer’s block has stopped your article writing campaign in its tracks, choose one or more of these five ideas to break through the block and get your viral marketing efforts back on track.

Move away from the computer

If you have been sitting at your computer, staring at a blank screen, pulling your hair out to get a new idea to write about, get up and move a little. The mere movement away from your computer to get some blood flowing will help to jumpstart your creative juices. If you haven’t come up with an idea to write about just by staring at the screen, continued staring will not change anything for you, except to give you a headache.

Read today’s headlines or your favorite blog

By reading today’s headlines or your favorite blog, your mind will reconnect with words and ideas again. It might take just one sentence or one article for your mind to come up with a new idea, but if you don’t come up with a new idea after the first headline or the first blog, try, try again. If still nothing comes to your mind, at least you have kept up with the news and seeds have been planted in your brain that might surface hours or days later.

Read through your previous articles

Read through some of your own articles to find an article that was written from a broad angle and pick it apart to come up with more articles on narrower topics.

In a typical article, as you were taught in school, you probably made three points that supported your main point. You can write an article on one of these three points and support it with three more points that can be used in later articles, then these three points can be used in three more articles and so on. See where I’m going? Until you get down to the article that tells about the “molecular structure” of whatever your topic is, you can write articles for days based on solely on one of your previous articles.

Make a list of words

Start with just a list of words associated with your business or area of interest that could become the topic of your article. If your business is about decorating on a budget, list the rooms in your house or the techniques, such as paint, wallpaper, stenciling, etc., that can be used to spruce up your walls. Start with just words then move up to phrases as those come to mind.

From this list you can choose one of the words or topics and write an article about that, or you can choose one area, such as walls, and write a series of articles on the different ways to change the look of a room just by changing the walls.

Write a post for your blog

When you have an idea to work with, write a post for your blog. Most blogs are written in a less formal, conversational tone than that used for articles for publication; often you feel as though you are writing to a friend rather than to an audience. Choose a topic or word from the headlines, a previous article, or your list of words and phrases start and writing a short post to your blog.

After writing this less formal, probably smaller, article for your blog, use the main ideas therein to turn it into an article for submission. You can then direct your blog readers to the full article and ask them to rate the article, which will in turn boost your author status, which will likely boost your morale and thus your creativity.

As in Newton’s 1st Law of Motion: a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. If the ideas you need to get your writing campaign back on track have come to a sudden stop, use one of these outside forces to get in motion again: move away from the computer, read today’s headlines or your favorite blog, read through your previous articles, make a list of words and phrases, or write a post for your blog. You will find the words flowing from your fingertips in no time.


- Claudia Pate

Writing an article doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the awareness of your readers, teach them valuable know-how and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a firm grasp of their interest and pique their curiosity.

The main ingredient in baking up an article is a large dose of creativity. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone to feel slight at uneasy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can’t seem to get their creative juices flowing.

Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.

So just what do you have to do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to get your creative juices flowing. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but many methods may aid you in achieving that state of mind. Here are five battle tested easy ways to overcome such issues.

1) Keep a diary or a journal with you always. Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard, someone’s ideas could be used to develop your own ideas and this is not stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it’s the development of the idea that makes it unique.

Not everyone are going to be able to remember to bring their journal or notepad along with them. However, it is highly likely that they would have their mobile on them. Today, mobiles has the capability to record instant audio and you can certainly take good advantage of your telephonic devices whenever that golden ideas start to kick in your head.

2) Relax and take time to sort things out. A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Everyone must have a clear mind if one wishes to have their creativity in full speed. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity. If you are bothered by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.

Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find out what triggers your emotions. Go back to the past. Discover what inspires you and what ticks you off. You can use these emotions to help you in expressing yourself and your ideas, with this you can grow creatively.

If it still fails, try to listen to calming music like the one you normally hear in the spa. You can easily buy these relaxing tunes from the music stores or download it off Itunes. You’re bound to feel better in the end.

3) Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness. Your working place can be quite a hindrance if it doesn’t make you feel happy or relaxed. Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won’t be conducive in firing up your creative flow.

Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects that inspire, or anything that can get your creativeness cranking. A clean and well organized workplace also rids of distractions and unwanted hindrances. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.

4) Set the mood. Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce yourself to feeling what makes your mind works best. Finding out what makes you tick could help you find ways to get your creative juices flowing. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.

There are many ways to set the mood. Some writers have been known to use alcohol, a little sip of wine to stir up the imagination. Some would like some mood music while others let the lighting of the environment create the mood.

5) Go on a getaway and just do something different. Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a solemn hike. Whatever it is that is unusual from your daily routine can take the rut out of your schedule. In no time at all, your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive.


- Ambar Hamid

I want to be a writer, but I never have anything to write. I’ve got tons of empty journals and spirals lying around, and when I do finally think of something to jot down I’ll read it later, decide it sounds stupid, rip it up, and throw it away. What should I do? I think that my major problem is never having anything to write, so I need some ideas to get my creative juices flowing. Any ideas?
- Kaylea