The question

What do you do when you feel creatively stuck?

Originally asked

The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series

A recurring Creative Independent question whose wording distinguishes a lasting block from a temporary impasse.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

SM
Shantell Martin

British visual artist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
You know, typically I like to draw when I’m in a good mood. It’s difficult for me to start a drawing when I’m not in a good mood because my work, in it’s essence, is very free and very light. For that to take place, you also have to feel quite free and quite light.

Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

Others on this question

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Vernon Chatman Comedy writer and producer
No, I guess I don’t really worry about that. The answer to a creative block is just to do another creative thing. To me a creative thing is almost anything. So like, literally, if I’m writing and can’t think of anything, I’ll just start moving my fingers typing, sometimes not even words. Just going through the artificial surface motion of it will get your brain going.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent, 7 November 2016 source ↗
Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't.
Recorded Betsy Morris, Fortune interview, Kona, Hawaii, March 2008 source ↗
I get really mad, and I’m like, “Well, I have to solve it.” I think of these things sometimes even as math problems. I take a photo of it, I turn it away, and I look at it in my phone a lot. An image becomes much less scary to solve when it’s not eight feet tall, but it’s eight centimeters tall. When I’m going to bed, I’m obsessively in the finger drawing app on my phone, and I try and figure out what to do with it. Eventually, I’ll figure out the answer, and then turn the painting back around and fix it, but it’s way harder to do when you’re just staring at the giant thing.
Recorded Emily Wilson, The Creative Independent, 17 July 2024 source ↗
Okay Kaya American-Norwegian musician
I’m not sure. I haven’t actually felt very stuck creatively or sonically. And when I think about it in hindsight, it’s just been on the forefront of my mind and what I think about. That has meant that I haven’t really thought about a lot of the other things that I do. But I think knowing that I have this thing that I can come back to that is interesting for me in my time here on Earth is healing for me, and makes me able to go out and do a lot of other things. It’s a bit of a lifeboat. So it helps having creation in music, but I don’t know if it’s implemented in the other practices. It’s like I have a sweet little invisible cat on my lap that I can stroke in the real world.
Recorded Lior Phillips, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

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