Writer’s Block - Creativity Ideas for National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo

Social Media Club of Kansas City (SMCKC) friend, Sarah Eggers tweeted Friday afternoon that we should run a compilation post on beating writer’s block in association with National Novel Writing Month, or #NaNoWriMo 2013.

Since Sarah’s previous Brainzooming blog topic ideas have all been winners, you can bet I paid attention to Sarah’s tweet.

Creativity Ideas for National Novel Writing Month

Here is a compendium of Brainzooming blog posts on a variety of aspects for enhancing creativity and getting around creative blocks.

While not all these creative ideas focus on writer’s block or writing, and none of them are specific to writing a novel, I went through the Brainzooming blog to narrow the list to articles with potential value to NaNoWriMo 2013 participants.

If your creativity is stuck for NaNoWriMo or in any other way, check out these articles to start or rekindle your creativity when you need it most!

Getting to the Root Causes of Your Creative Block

• Creative Apathy and Creative Blocks – Same or Different? - Sometimes just not caring is the creative issue.
• 15 Situations that Cause Writer’s Block - Ideas to narrow down the root cause of writer's block.
• Getting Started – When Expectations of Perfection Create a Creative Block - Give yourself permission to not be perfect when you start writing.
• Implementation Problems? 7 Signs You’re Understarting, Not Overthinking - Things we do and think to keep ourselves from starting.
• 3 Ways to Be More Creative and Boost Your Creative Confidence - 3 easy ways to get past initial creative challenges.

Some Ways to Try to Shake Creative Block

• 26 Creativity Tips for When You’re Suffering Creative Block - A big list of tips to dodge creative block & kindle creativity.
• Creative Block? Find a Huge Task to Avoid - Find something even more challenging than writing to absorb your creative block.
• Creative Direction – 8 Ideas for When Creativity Is Too Easy or Hard - Ways to put your creative pursuit in the right frame to start.
• Kids, Creative Blocks, and Adult Creativity - Kids just create, and you can too.
• 5 Ways to Avoid a Creative Block on a Project - Aim for simplicity and the easiest path to start writing.
• Have a Creative Block? Five Ways Structure Can Help - Incorporate a familiar structure to start or extend your writing.
• How to Be Creative – A 5-Part Creative Thinking Skills Formula - Numbers, combinations, and perspectives to make starting easier.
• 9 Extreme Creativity Questions from Peter’s Laws - Powerful questions to imagine extreme creative possibilities.
• What to Blog About – 10 Things to Do with Your Blog Scraps - Ways to take your writing scraps and turn them into a more complete piece.
• 14 Ideas for a Creativity Boost this Work Week - When the week gets long and feels uncreative, break open this article.
• 61 Online and Social Media Resources for Motivating People to Create - If you're sitting at your computer, here are creative resources to tap.
• 7 Ideas for Using Twitter to Be More Creative - Twitter could have the people and creative ideas you need 24/7 throughout November.
• Reinterpreting Creative Inspiration – 7 Lessons to Borrow Creative Ideas - Borrow creative ideas and structures that work for others to work for you.

Other Peoples’ Ideas for Enhancing Creativity

• Creative Blocks, Creative Performance and Creative Strategy from a Pulitzer Prize Winner - Force yourself to create and think creatively while doing something else.
• Creative Ideas – 5 Authors’ Perspectives for Defeating “Enemies of Invention” - Five prompts from five authors to slay the enemies of invention . . . and writing.
• Breaking Creativity Blocks – Guest Post from Robert Alan Black, Ph.D. - It doesn't get more creative than Robert Alan Black!
• Junk Ideas – 15 Ideas to Turn Junk Ideas into Treasures - Ideas you think you should throw away may hold the creative key.
• Super 8 Lessons in How to Be More Creative from Spielberg and Abrams - Creative ideas from two movie masters.
• Creative Thinking Exercise – Scooby Doo and Friends Bust a Creative Block by Woody Bendle - Rearry? Scooby Doo can help creativity? REARRY!
• Creative Process – Five Usual Steps for Unusual Creativity - A candy maker's creativity can create sweet writing ideas.

– Mike Brown