The one thing I get asked on a regular from my students and people in my workshops is how to overcome creative blocks.
One of the tools I find helpful is visual cues.
As human beings we are all, to some degree or another, stimulated by the visual aspects of our world. One practice that seems to aid in this for me is giving myself a break from the linear elements and going for a walk in nature. The colors and textures and the simple act of shifting the perspective of my environment and how they restrict my thinking has tremendous effect in unlocking my creative energy.
When a walk is not possible due to time, location or weather then I find a coffee table book filled with images of exotic scenes or surfing the image function just as stimulating. A visit to the local Chapters allows a place to sit and review new books. Typing in random phrases and words such as “blue” or “beaches and sun” in the search line of Google images brings up wonderful surprises.
The basic trick is not that complicated… shift the brain’s focus and just allow what comes naturally to come. The more unrelated to your current project the “distraction” the more results you can expect in the overcoming of the barriers you are experiencing to your creativity.
Other tools are taking a break to write in a journal or playing with word cloud sites on line to generate a visual that may showcase certain words for you when you type a paragraph or two. If you express your desire and plans into one of these word cloud generators you can, at times, see the thing that blocks more clearly or spot a word that can shift your thoughts. Is that not what creative blocks are anyway? Only thought… and you are in control of your thoughts.