What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or 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.

Recorded Ramona Ausubel said elsewhere, not written here
I feel like that’s my actual profession: to get stuck and then get unstuck. That’s what I actually spend most of my time doing. It happens mostly in fiction for me. But maybe that’s what we all are doing all the time. That might be what life is, I feel like, is taking something as far as you can and then being like, “I actually don’t know what to do next.” And then, having to figure out, “Okay. So how is that an opportunity?”

Hurley Winkler, The Creative Independent, 17 October 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Ada Yonath Structural biologist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 2009
I look for how to get out of it. I try to use here [points to her head]. I tried to read, I tried to talk to others. I tried my best to get out of it. I had lots of times climbing one Everest to find that there is a bigger Everest, but don’t you find your life like this too?
Recorded Lorena Guzman, Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings source ↗
Josh Fadem American comedian
Yeah. The downside for me is, say I have something that I know is out of my comfort zone in terms of my ability, the discipline comes in where I know I have to do this thing that’s out of my comfort zone when it would be so much easier to get the immediate satisfaction from doing the thing that’s in my comfort zone and get the positive response 10 times over.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview source ↗
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 ↗
Richard Feynman Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys.  You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students.  Nothing!
Recorded Excerpt from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine, 1985 source ↗

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