From Stuck to Unstuck

I have had a very poor week. I’m stuck. I have found it very difficult to get out of bed of a morning and cringe at the idea of facing the computer. I’m not even sure how it started, but it has lasted all week. I haven’t known where to turn to next and I haven’t written a word, well a creative word, at all.

Today I finally turned to a great book to find some solace and see if I could find something to help. The reference is Chapter after Chapter by Heather Sellers. And she is fantastic. But one of the key points in the chapter I turned to today was that what works for others may not work for you. It is important to find your own strategies for coming unstuck.

Sellers gives a range of options and within those there is room for personalising each strategy. One of the options she suggested struck a chord with me – make a list. I love lists. I find lists calming and helpful.

So where I couldn’t sit at the computer and work through ideas I have been standing at the kitchen door writing out lists of questions. In a way I was writing lists of ideas but I find them more useful when formed as questions.

These questions will then sit in my head, moving around and slowly working their way out to a solution. It all helps in moving from stuck to unstuck. Tomorrow morning when I sit down I will be able to think about one of the ideas that I questioned tonight.  And then I’m sure a scene or idea will start to form itself and the words will flow. And the day after and the day after that.

I’m quite excited now about sitting down in my study tomorrow morning. Now all I need to do is make a note so that the next time I get stuck it doesn’t take me as long to work out how to get unstuck.