Creative monsters take many forms and use a variety of techniques to rip our creative ideas and spirit to shreds. In this episode, we’ll learn how to recognize the creative monsters in your life and how to avoid them.

If you’re enjoying these podcast episodes, please head over to  iTunes and leave a review. Also, make sure to subscribe soyou’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Got friends who might enjoy this show? Help spread the joy by telling them about DIY MFA Radio.

Now let’s talk writing.

Creative monsters never hit you while you’re down. They jump out when you’re actually making progress and feeling successful. And they come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

• The boss who drops a giant project on you at the last minute, when you were headed out the door to have a weekend dedicated to working on your project.
• The friend who constantly asks you when you’re going to get published.
• The spouse who calls you with a crisis when you’re supposed to be writing.

All of these reasons can be legitimate, not intended necessarily to bring you down. Still they can chip away at your creative confidence if you don’t learn how to combat them. Here are three steps to help you evade these creative monsters in your life.

Tips for Monster Evasion

1. It’s not you, it’s them.

When you are being successful and creative, your monsters are feeling threatened. Their worldview, and the role that you play in it, can feel attacked. You’re doing something that takes away from who they expect you to be and that’s scary for them. And the people who are closest to you can be the biggest creative monsters because they have the most to lose.

It’s important for you to remember that you aren’t doing anything wrong. You can find small adjustments to help them deal with your creative side. But you will have to learn how to keep them at bay so that you can get to the important, creative work you have to do.

2. Avoid giving them ammunition

Your creative monsters may be well-intentioned, but they don’t understand writing and publishing like you do. Don’t complain to them about how hard writing is. Don’t go on a tirade against the publishing industry. They will only use this information for evil, not for good. The creative monsters will take these frustrations and build an argument for why you should quit writing altogether instead of helping you figure out how to work through the obstacles in your path.

Likewise, they may not understand the significance of small victories or exciting milestones that you encounter on your creative journey. Their reaction when you tell them about these things will only drag you down.

Instead, find a group of like-minded writers, your new creative allies, to share the ups and downs of your creativity with.

3. Practice self-care for the setbacks and celebrate the small victories.

Creative monsters can diminish your triumphs. Make sure to give yourself credit for your victories in a way that is meaningful for you. Whatever that looks like for you, make sure you tell yourself when you hit those little milestones.

Now, I’m dying to know…

Who are the creative monsters in your life? How can you lovingly evade them and care for yourself to help keep them at bay? Do you have any awesome, monster-evading techniques you’d like to share with us? Leave a comment below and tell us how you combat the creative monsters in your life.

Link to Episode 14

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 14: Creative Monsters appeared first on DIY MFA.

If you’ve ever experienced writer’s block, you know that you have to get through all these stages to be able to get back to writing. Writer’s block is painful, but not writing is even more painful.

Listen to the episode below for details about the five stages and how to overcome them.

Stage 1: Denial

“I don’t have writer’s block. I’m just really busy.”

If you’re going to get past a block, you have to acknowledge that it is there and that any excuses you have for not being able to write are just a way of avoiding writing.

Stage 2: Anger

“I never have time to write. It’s not fair!”

Anger is a defense mechanism. It masks the truth that you’re not writing by shifting the blame to someone or something else. The cure is simple. Just start writing. Use your anger to fuel your creativity.

Stage 3: Bargaining

“If I don’t write today but I write twice as much tomorrow, it will even out, right?”

Bargaining is just a fancy word for denial. Don’t let the cycle of procrastination pick up momentum. Sit down and write, even if it’s only for 15 minutes.

Stage 4: Depression

“Why bother? Everything I write is lousy.”

Up until now, the focus of your inability to write has been external, but now it is internal. This phase happens when you let your frustrations about writer’s block become personal. It’s important to remember that this is just a temporary phase. The best way to work through it is to sit down and write something. It doesn’t have to be good. Failure is ok. Mistakes are what teach us so that we can do better next time.

Stage 5: Acceptance

“Maybe I have writer’s block, but it’s ok. I can still sit down and write through it.”

All it takes is one small step at a time to get back on track. Just sit down and write. When we carry our stories in our head, it’s like we’re carrying all of this excess baggage in our brains. We need to dump it onto the page so that we can clear our minds and so that we can make it into something beautiful.

Link to Episode 13

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 13: The 5 Stages of Writer’s Block appeared first on DIY MFA.

But setting limits for your writing can be a good thing. It’s only in limiting your choices that you are able to start writing and create a story. Also when you have fewer options, you are all the more likely to make the most of the resources you have. In this episode I’ll share with you exactly why setting limits are the key to unleashing your creative spirit.

Having too many options open can be paralyzing. It’s like when you have a blank page in front of you it’s so hard to write, but when you put something (anything!) on the page, the writing suddenly becomes easier.

Here are 5 Reasons to Set Limits:

1. Limits give you freedom. Sometimes having too many choices can be paralyzing and the best thing we can do for our writing is to set some limits.
2. Limits give you focus. When you focus, your writing becomes more potent and concise, instead of scattered and dilute.
3. Limits make you stop and think. When you pause and think things through before writing, you’re more likely to get it “right” the first time and you can avoid costly mistakes.
4. Limits give your writing voice distinction. Sooner or later, you have to own your voice and start having opinions. When you share what you really think, you may not appeal to everyone, but you’ll connect with your ideal readers.
5. Limits give your story shape/structure. Every choice you make when writing is a limit that you set for yourself, your characters, and the world you are building

Some Ways to Set Limits:

1) Use prompts.

Prompts are a great way to challenge yourself by setting limits, and we have some for you to try! Our Conquer the Craft writing challenge is going on right now! With 29 prompts in 29 days, this challenge is the perfect way to set some limits and improve your writing.

2) Put something on the page.

A quote, a sentence from your previous writing session, whatever. It doesn’t matter what you put on the page as long as you just start writing. Something on the page will get you focused, thinking, and most importantly… writing.

3) Close a door for your character.

If there are too many directions where your story can go, then it’s not really a story. Limit those options. Eliminate some possibilities and watch your character take decisive action.

4) Leave something to chance.

Pick prompts at random. Roll a die to decide which way your story will go. Do something that leaves the choice up to chance, then work with the result that you get.

Resource Recap:

Conquer the Craft: Try the Conquer the Craft writing challenge, 29 prompts in 29 days. This challenge is not only designed to help you write more, but to make you write better. For more details or to join, go to DIYMFA.com/challenge.

In case you’re curious, here’s a link to the research article about that Iyengar jam study. There’s a lot of statistical details in there, but this article will give you the most detailed view about the study.

Link to Episode 4

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 4: Why Setting Limits is a Good Thing appeared first on DIY MFA.

After hearing Bryan share his general insights on his approach to creativity I got really interested in finding out how writers might apply the techniques. So, mentioned a few different scenarios that writers often face, and asked Bryan which technique or creative exercise he would recommend for each situation.

Generating Story Ideas

Gabriela: Let’s start with idea generation. What technique would you recommend for a writer trying to generate story ideas?

Bryan: The technique I would use to generate new story ideas is a new product development technique called semantic intuition. It’s a word combination technique, where you combine components of a new product: unique packages, ingredients, product forms, consumer benefits, dispensers, etc. in intentionally-random ways to inspire new ideas. For a writer, you could combine three different components of a story to inspire new story ideas. Here’s how it might work.

Characters

• An overweight 24-year old female poet
• An injured firefighter being forced to retire
• A recently-divorced military historian

Actions

• Touring Europe in search of adventure
• Volunteering at a retirement home
• Taking a stand-up comedy class

Character Development/Arc

The character wants to learn how to:

• Be more open to others ideas
• Give of one’s self
• Love one’s self

Randomly combining these story elements could give you the following story lines:

1. An overweight 24-year old female poet taking a stand-up comedy class to learn how to love herself.
2. An injured firefighter touring Europe in search of adventure to learn how to be more open to other’s ideas.
3. A recently-divorced military historian volunteering at a retirement home to learn how to give of more of himself to others.

Gabriela: I love this technique. Actually, it’s kind of like a more tangible version of the Writer Igniter here at DIY MFA. Can you tell us more about how to implement this?

Bryan:  To make this technique fun, get three empty jars. Label the first jar: “Characters”, the second jar “Actions” and the third jar “Character Arcs.” Then over one to two months, fill up the jars with different story elements. Giving yourself the time to fill up the jars will do two things. First, it’ll make the task less daunting. And it will give your creative mind the “soak time” it needs to come up with really interesting story elements.

Does this process seem too, well… mechanical? It shouldn’t. It’s important that you only put story elements into the empty jars that you have in interest in/are passionate about. If a firefighter doesn’t interest you, but a pioneer woman does, only put her in your character jar. If learning to be an award winning pastry chef French pastry is on your bucket list, put that in the “action” jar.

After the allotted time, randomly draw and combine the story elements to create new story lines. And get ready to write, because you should have more ideas than you know what to do with!

Gabriela: What I like about this jar method is that writers can tailor the contents of their jars specifically to the type of writing they’re doing. After all, a romance writer’s jars will probably look very different from those assembled by a mystery writer. And there’s something fun and exciting about drawing slips of paper, kind of like a lottery.

Writer’s Block

Gabriela: Every writer eventually falls prey to that infamous beast “writer’s block.” What technique can they use to slay that monster?

Bryan: I think there are different kinds of writer’s block. The writer’s block that Hemingway was experiencing was caused in part by the electroshock therapy he had undergone. And one can only imagine how difficult it must have been for William Styron to write as he battled clinical depression.  So there can be severe emotional and psychological traumas that cause writer’s block.

But if we look at “everyday” writer’s block, I think the underlying cause is most often because, paradoxically, we’ve gotten better and better at our skill as writers. We know what’s good and we know what isn’t and this expertise can short-circuit the creative process. We cut off nascent ideas before they have a chance to grow into something we’re excited and passionate to write. The analogy I would make comes from our ideation sessions. When we do table break-out exercises and there is an “expert” at one of the tables, this table invariably has the fewest number and least creative ideas. Why? Because the expert spends a great deal of time: a) providing a left-brain analysis of the topic, and more importantly b) detailing all the reasons why proposed ideas won’t work because “we tried something like this before.”

The three techniques I’d recommend (and use myself) to combat writer’s block are Mindmapping, Freewriting, and Mindstorming. Most writers will know Mindmapping (or a similar technique: idea clustering). Mindmapping by Joyce Wycoff and Mind Mapping for Dummies by Florian Rustler are both good books on the topic. I’ve used Mindmapping to help unblock marketing executives who are having trouble writing their annual marketing plan or creating a presentation.

Most writers will also know freewriting or “doing their pages,” as Julia Cameron recommends in her creativity classic, The Artist’s Way.”

Mindstorming is a simple technique, we sometimes as warm up in our ideation sessions, where we set an idea goal (usually twenty ideas) for individuals or teams. Ironically, by having this goal of twenty ideas, it takes the pressure off the quality of each idea. Notice I said the goal is twenty ideas, not twenty GOOD ideas. Typically when we do this exercise, ideas one to five are close in ideas, ideas six through fifteen further out, and the last five or six ideas, the most purely creative and interesting.

Gabriela:  These are great techniques. I’m especially a fan of mindmapping! In college, I took all my notes that way. The only problem was if someone wanted to borrowed my notes, they had no idea what all those lines and squiggles meant. Mindmapping might not work for everyone, but it’s great for visual thinkers (like me) who need to “see” the story on the page. We actually did an article earlier this year on visual outline techniques, one of which was mindmapping.

Marketing a Book

Gabriela: We’ve all been told that it’s not enough any more for writers just to write the book and hope for the best, they have to help market and sell it too. What would you suggest to a writer working through the challenge of marketing a book?

Bryan: Writers should feel that they can be as creative in how they market their books, as they were in the writing of their book. Great writers take creative risks. So do great marketers.

A creative thinking strategy that I’ve used – and will continue to use – to generate innovative marketing and promotion ideas for Idea Stormers is what I call the “AND” strategy. The example of the “AND” strategy I give in the book was a challenge I worked on to create new marketing ideas for flower growers in Columbia. Flowers AND ______ ! Flowers and food. Flowers and Sports. Flowers and religion. Flowers and contracts. Flowers and history. So thinking of “Flowers and Sports” it’s not much of a creative leap to propose making flower arrangements or boutonnières in the colors of a favorite sports team.

For Idea Stormers, an “AND” strategy was to it to link it other creative art forms, since the book is about the creative process. Idea Stormers AND _______! Idea Stormers and Music. Idea Stormers and Painting. Idea Stormers and Poetry. Idea Stormers and Fashion. What did we do? Idea Stormers and Music! If you go to Amazon and Barnes and Noble, you’ll see that my team and I wrote and performed an original song entitled “Idea Stormers.” As far as I know, this is the first time an original song has been written specifically for the purpose of promoting a book.

Gabriela: This “AND” strategy is key for writers to use with social media. There’s been a lot of talk lately about how you shouldn’t blog/tweet/facebook about writing because that appeals to other writers. Instead, the theory is writers should talk about things that resonate with their readers. I think using the “AND” strategy could be a great way for writers to tap into what other things their readers like and find ways to combine those interests with their book.

The Creative Process

Gabriela: I’d also love to hear a little about your own creative process.  What did your creative process look like when writing this book? Did you use any of your own techniques as you developed and wrote the book?

Bryan: I write by intuition and feel. I also think from the bottom up: identifying specific stories, insights, or ideas, and then generalizing the principles inherent in these specifics to bigger concepts, strategies, and themes. It can be inefficient but it’s the way my mind works.

I knew that there were original stories I wanted to tell in the book: stories that had a beginning (the creative challenge), middle (the application of a specific creative technique) and end (a successfully-launched new product or business strategy.) I wanted the stories I ultimately chose for the book to also have an inherent, original, and unique “teaching moment,” providing me the opportunity tell the “how-to’s” of a specific creative technique or elucidate a broader creative principle.

So I certainly had the raw – and original — material for a book, which was why my literary agent was able to sell it.

The writing challenge for me was how to stich all the stories and pieces together into a thoughtful and compelling narrative, something incidentally I hadn’t done particularly well in my first book, 99% Inspiration. That book was more a collection of interesting articles on creativity and the creative process, rather than a true book with an integrated structure.

I knew in speaking with several editors who were interested in the book, that the editor at the house I ultimately went with, Wiley Jossey-Bass, would force me to be crystal clear about what the larger themes for the book were, and organize these themes accordingly. So, it was obvious to me that I would be forced into writing a much better book than if had I been left to my own devices, without the guidance of a great editor. I also knew that by taking the harder road of working with a great editor I would learn a great deal about myself, my writing and my own creative process; and ultimately be happier with the result.

Gabriela: When all else fails, which is your go-to creative technique? Why?

Bryan: When all else fails my “technique” is to talk to people. As someone who has facilitated over 1500 ideation sessions and creative focus groups, it surprises many people to learn that I am an introvert.  I get energy from being alone and thinking my own thoughts. The downside of being an introvert is that like other introverts (and I assume this includes most writers) I can get trapped by my own self-limiting thoughts and constructs. There’s a rhythm to life and creating new ideas that requires an inflow of new material, an internal processing of this input, creating the new, and then sharing what’s been created. By talking with people, and using them to preliminarily test some of my ideas, I get two things: new and different perspectives on what I was originally thinking about, as well as entirely new, unexpected ideas.

Put another way, by talking with people – and this is often people I trust like those with whom I work at my innovation consulting company – I can change the flow: from too much internal to a balance with the external. An analogy might be a two-way radio that’s got to both send and receive messages.

Gabriela: Thank you Bryan, for all your great insights and for letting us have an inside look at your creative process.

And to all our readers, thank YOU for sticking with us through these two meaty articles! I don’t know about you, but I definitely learned a lot. I hope you enjoyed hearing Bryan share his creative strategies as much as I did.

Now I want to hear from you: what techniques do YOU use to boost your creativity?

Bryan Mattimore is one of America’s top experts in applied creativity, ideation facilitation and innovation management. His bestselling book, 99% Inspiration: A Real World Guide to Business Creativity was selected as the American Management Association’s membership book of the year. His articles on applied creativity have appeared in dozens of magazines including Advertising Age, Reader’s Digest, The Futurist, Omni and Success. He has successfully facilitated more than 1,500 business and marketing ideation sessions for clients, including Sony, DKNY, Wyeth, Unilever, IBM, Honeywell, Pepsi, Centrum, Dove, Crayola, Bauer, Ford, the City of New York, and Craftsman.

The post Boost Your Creativity: Ideation Techniques for Writers appeared first on DIY MFA.

Can you tell us a little about the concept behind Idea Stormers and what led you to write this book?

My life’s work has been to understand and invent new creative processes, both for individuals and teams.  Because my Growth Engine coworkers and I consult primarily with businesses, and more specifically business teams, our creative work has had to be very bottom line-oriented. Every day we’re being judged on how well we’ve helped our clients generate that next big, breakthrough idea. And even though we’re always experimenting and inventing new creative techniques–which makes our work enormously fun–we also know that at the end of the day whatever idea-generation processes we use, they have to deliver. A great deal of trial and error in several  thousand ideation sessions and creative focus groups has helped us understand which creative techniques have the greatest likelihood of success for a particular kind of creative challenge. I wrote Idea Stormers because I wanted to share what we’ve learned and potentially multiply the impact of our work. We all know one great idea can change the world. The processes in Idea Stormers can help individuals and teams generate a great many new ideas.

Could you clarify a term for us? What is ideation exactly and how is it different from brainstorming?

Brainstorming is actually a specific group creative technique invented in the 1930’s, even though it’s commonly used as a generic term to represent the process of coming up with a new idea.  The two basic tenants of the brainstorming technique are: 1) to get a few good ideas generate a lot of ideas, and 2) don’t judge others ideas while you’re generating ideas since if you do, it will shut down the creative process.

Since the 1930’s, tremendous advancements have been made in the number and kinds of creative techniques to help individuals and groups generate new ideas. So a new term “ideation,” evolved to represent these newly-invented creative approaches, processes and techniques. And yes, you will find the terms “ideation” and “ideating” in the Scrabble dictionary.

Idea Stormers focuses on the ideation process in the business environment, but many of the same creative challenges can also apply to writers. After all these days authors aren’t just writers, they also have to be entrepreneurs, marketers… in some cases even their own publishers. How might a writer apply some of the business ideation techniques you discuss in the book?

If, as a writer, you look at your book as a product, which of course it is, there should be much of interest in Idea Stormers. Replace the words “new product” with “book,” and you’ll discover that there are dozens of “book marketing” idea-generation techniques in Idea Stormers. Some of these techniques include picture prompts, day-in-the-life, worst idea, target market wishing, magazine rip and rap, and You Tube video prompts, etc.

A trick that writers can use–both to add dimension to characters and story ideas, as well as to title or position a book–is to “get visual.” Getting visual can be particularly valuable when the finite nature of words seems to be imposing limits on the infinite possibilities of the imaginative mind.

Looking to write better descriptions of the physical features of your lead character? Search online visual databases to inspire you. Want a better feel for the psychology of a particular character? Create a collage of his or her most intimate desires and wishes. Not quite sure how to describe a particular location in a unique and compelling way? Watch movie clips or You Tube videos.

As you know, there are also some creative challenges unique to writers. How might the ideation process for a writer differ from that someone in the business environment and how can writers use the techniques in your book?

There’s a surprisingly productive technique we use in our ideation sessions we call The Worst Idea technique. Instead of trying to generate good ideas, the teams first create terrible, awful, stupid, ridiculous, absurd, gross, crazy, even sexually-inappropriate ideas. Bad, really bad ideas. Then teams use these worst ideas to trigger good ideas: by either thinking of the opposite of the worst idea, or by thinking that as bad as is this worst idea is, there is something in it they can use to inspire a good idea.

One of the challenges of good writing is to continually surprise the reader; but only in ways that are consistent with the characters, the situation, and the narrative. Sometimes (much as when using the worst idea to generate a good idea) it’s as simple as doing the exact opposite of what is expected or “obvious.” For instance, in the movie Terms of Endearment, we expect Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson), the philandering ex-astronaut, to be the aggressor in the lovemaking scene with his next-door neighbor, Aurora (Shirley MacLaine).  But in an hilarious reversal of the expected, it is the feisty Aurora who takes control!

When you’re in need of outside inspiration, where do you turn? Also do you have a creative ritual that helps get you in “the zone”?

I go to a lot of movies, and I “theme read” books. For instance, I am now writing a young adult novel that uses the creative process as its theme. So, I ordered a dozen different creative-thinking puzzle books to help inspire me and sensitize me to the creative problem solving challenges that kids in junior high and high school are asked to solve.

I’m also “theme reading” 1984, Utopia, Walden Two, and Brave New World because I’ve become interested in how societies can be re-imagined to help individuals within that society realize more of their creative potential.

To get in the zone, I will tell you several things I don’t do! I’m not inspired by the smell of rotten apples (as was true of German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller), or by drinking over 50 cups of coffee a day (as Balzac did), or even by writing standing up (as Hemingway did) or writing lying down (as Mark Twain sometimes did). No, I get into the zone by playing tricks on myself. One trick I use is to work on the easily achievable first: something I know I can succeed with as a prelude to tackling a really tough writing challenge. I’m thinking now specifically of the rewrites I had to do on Idea Stormers. Some of the creative challenges from my two editors were to be more explicit about teaching moments, and be even clearer about how people new to the field might apply a specific creative technique. As an expert in the field of group ideation and organizational innovation, it meant I would often take things for granted. Being explicit about how or why something will work (when it was so obvious to me because of my experience) made for some difficult writing challenges.

This path of least resistance–saving some of the harder creative challenges for later– enables me to build on success by completing the easier re-writes first. But it also allows the creative subconscious the “soak time” it needs to work the problem; and which in time will, as Norman Lear one said, “slip me a note, like in study hall, with the answer.”

Any other words of advice to writers who want to boost their creativity?

If I hadn’t signed the contract to write Idea Stormers it would not be on the market now or possibly even years from now. I intentionally created the conditions that forced me into having two jobs for the five months it took me to write, and re-write, the book. I had my “day job” of running my company and doing client work; and the late night, early morning, vacation, and weekend job of writing the book. I had committed to writing a 60,000 word book and so when I did the math, I knew that I’d have to write 500 words a day. I didn’t have a choice. So deadlines have a funny way of boosting creativity.

One of the big surprises of the Idea Stormers launch is that I’m now having to write as much, or even more now than when I was writing the book. My PR firm has gotten me opportunities to write guest blogs, Q & A’s, and magazine articles for CNBC, Fast Company, Forbes, etc. I thought I could re-package the material I had already written, but in most cases I have to create original works – as I’m doing now with this Q&A for DIYMFA.

So my last words of advice to writers are: create conditions to force yourself to write more, especially if you’re like me, someone who would prefer to watch the Giants game than write.

Want to learn more about how to boost your creativity? Stay tuned for part two of the Q&A with Bryan tomorrow. You’ll get an inside look at how you can apply specific techniques from his book to different aspects of your writing.

Bryan Mattimore is one of America’s top experts in applied creativity, ideation facilitation and innovation management. His bestselling book, 99% Inspiration: A Real World Guide to Business Creativity was selected as the American Management Association’s membership book of the year. His articles on applied creativity have appeared in dozens of magazines including Advertising Age, Reader’s Digest, The Futurist, Omni and Success. He has successfully facilitated more than 1,500 business and marketing ideation sessions for clients, including Sony, DKNY, Wyeth, Unilever, IBM, Honeywell, Pepsi, Centrum, Dove, Crayola, Bauer, Ford, the City of New York, and Craftsman.

The post Idea Stormers: Creativity Q&A with Bryan Mattimore appeared first on DIY MFA.