(re)Lighting the Fire

Last time I talked about the things I do so that the creative spark can easily reignite. If you've ever built a fire, you know that a spark can easily go out if you don't have enough ready to catch fire. So this time I'm talking about the things I've done to try and make sure that any little spark has plenty of fuel to catch on to.

1) Leave Plenty of Room for Ideas

I talked about cleaning out my writer's notebook, but when I feel the urge to write start to come back, I give myself permission to buy a few more notebooks or fun pens to keep around. I'm not talking expensive signing fountain pens or hardbound journals. Those are rewards! For when you finish something big or dear to you. No, I go to the Dollar Tree or the front of Target and let myself wander. $5 bucks later and I have something I can't wait to use!

2) Reconnect

I gave up Facebook for Lent, but I didn't realize I had also dropped a large source of news and encouragement. Since Lent is over, I've reconnected there, and I've improved and diversified my sources of news, music, and images. Using one main source is definitely problematic. So I turned to Twitter (though I haven't mastered it) as well as turning up the heat on my website, and exploring all my old Pandora stations. I need to go through my author Instagram, so feel free to hit me up there!

3) Challenge Yourself

I'm talking straight up competition here. I can be competitive (which brings its own problems). But it can work to my advantage as well. Right as I was feeling myself getting out of the funk there was a Run/Walk/Write 5K. Write 5k and move 5k. I wasn't sure I was ready but I wanted that kick in the pants. So I signed up and did my best. It was all on the honor system. I managed to get in my 5k walk, the dog made sure of that. The words were harder. I only managed about 2.5k. But those 2.5k words felt good, and that's a lot more than I had written over the entire previous 40 days, so I'm calling it a win!

The big thing is, I don't believe I could have done these three things at the beginning of my creative hibernation and skipped the waiting period. I've often had the phrase "a change is as good as a rest" pop up and I don't buy it for everything. I have been stalking a few authors and creatives and many seem to work on several different projects at a time in order to keep themselves going. I also see many of them complain of exhaustion and getting stuck, so I'm not sure that's the path I can handle.

I'm fairly certain my creative hibernation is over. It's a relief, as not writing drives me crazy. What do you think? Have any of the 3 posts on creative hibernation struck a chord with you? What sort of fuel would you add to nourish a creative spark? Let me know!