end writer’s block – Page 2 – Creative Life Midwife

Writing Prompt inspired by Jack Kerouac: Your Memories + Awe = #5for5BrainDump Magic

September 7, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Jack Kerouac said, “Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.” This is a territory ripe for self reflection.

Let’s do this.

First, make a list of 5 times in your life when your actions surprised you.

Scan your list to consider and ultimately choose the one time that is the most appealing for you to write about today. Set your timer for five minutes and write, starting with the prompt, “I remember….”

Note: if that first attempt falls flat and your words don’t flow, try a different memory.

Oftentimes there is something in the way of writing from the first memory and the simple act of completing your writing from another memory will ignite writing flow for both.

Bonus: Share your writing experience with at least one other person today.

NOTE: if you would like to participate in a Writing Community, I would love to invite you to be a part of the Word-Love Writing Community I facilitate on Facebook.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Decide to Make Progress: Tenacity and Abundant Love

September 1, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can change and control your life; the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

Amelia Earhart

I can’t remember how many times I’ve said to my children, “Here I go… faster than a speeding bullet!” and then I stay immobile. I think it started when I was pregnant with Samuel and felt enormous and weighted down with “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and somehow it has stuck all these years later.

For me it isn’t as much the decision to act, but combining the decision to act with the movement itself. I appreciate what Amelia says here and she is certainly a model for decision making and managing risk – but for me it goes one step further.

Fears are paper tigers, Amelia said. (Note – paper tigers are defined as “a person or thing that appears threatening but is ineffectual.”)

Maybe the gold lives in letting go of “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and settling instead into the forward movement, even when I don’t know how. Moving my pencil when I don’t know what it will point out in me, making the phone call when I don’t want to hear the voice on the other end, tying my shoes, stepping out the door and taking the first, second, third, forty second and beyond step.

“Decide” needs to carry an action with it. What popped into my head just now is the first syllable is picking up the foot and the second syllable is the locomotion, the movement, the forward in the direction that calls.

What if for the next few days (or hours even) I reward myself for the process rather than the result. My process here went like this:

I realized I hadn’t done my #5for5BrainDump session.
I wanted to keep my streak going of writing and publishing daily.
I rationalized, thinking how smug I was about writing my morning pages and getting started on a Top 10 list.
“But that isn’t publishing” my writing angel reminded me. “That isn’t brain dumping into blog post.”
I took all the necessaries to move from deciding into action into finished project.

My timer went off, so I am going to go to my website dashboard and prep a page as efficiently as possible. (I did it! less than ten minutes later, here you are loves! Offered with tenacity, a sprinkling of daring and buckets of love.)

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

This Exact Gratitude: Origin Unknown – Result? Remarkable

July 24, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

The date of this exact gratitude list that gave birth to this (nearly over) mini-retreat/soulful social media quiet time is unclear. I remember sitting in my car, scribbling the list it – but exactitude? It won’t matter in the long run. It doesn’t even matter now, a week or so later.

I wrote:

I am grateful for the ability to communicate.

I am grateful for the beauty of words.

I am grateful for the people who read the words I toss, cry and mindfully set down upon blue lined paper.

I am grateful for whatever it is I manage to create today (because I know I will. Eventually anyway.)

I am grateful to know I will not judge quantity or quality or relevance of the words and objects I create today.

I am grateful I am able to move my pen across the page. I am grateful words fall off the tip so effortlessly.

I am grateful there are papers to catch the words I write in cursive (and it looks pretty!) I’m grateful for pencil sharpeners.

I am grateful for crape myrtle trees and finches and mourning doves.

I am grateful for enthusiastic young people (I sound like an old farm-hand) who just got promoted who still have a vision for their lives that includes accepting whatever happens with grace and building upon those circumstances, whichever, with grace.

Today I am grateful for the years I have been writing and sharing consistently. That “old stuff” is so current, so accessible and ready.

It created the plan and execution of that plan. Edit to evolve and the mighty, beneficent yes shines through.

My mission is to daily “gather our word-love community to collaborate and create a ritual, path, method to save/preserve/curate and continue to breathe heart into our collective life work.”

Daily, recognize and claim my place as a singular and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

= = =

Since I re-visited this time of creative process last Wednesday, I have repeated these declarations and oh, have they ever helped me not only in my daily direction, but also in casting my future and present vision.

This exact gratitude list may have unknown origins, but the continued growth and rebirth as a result of gratitude is blanketing my life. It is grounding me and lifting me toward heaven.

It’s been a while since I felt like this.

Today I am remembering and standing on this strength to continue as I declare daily: I recognize and claim my place as a singular, unique and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

How to End Writer’s Block with Another Episode of… the 5 Minute Miracle

April 26, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I oftentimes make comments like “I don’t believe in blocks” and “blocks are a mindset thing, switch your mind, block evaporates” and yet here I sit, today, troubled and uncomfortable and squirmy and wishing I could be doing anything in the world EXCEPT writing about blocks but the little inner creativity coach who lives in my chest beside my heart says “Write for five minutes, just the magical five and you will feel better when it’s over than you do right now.”

I set my timer and wrote…

I will feel better, I will feel better I will feel better.

A few minutes ago I was in my backyard, sweeping my driveway. Haven’t done that in much longer than I should have. I swept my walk way yesterday and asked the question, “What would it take to make this a daily practice so that I could see it as a creative endeavor, like writing, which I do almost every day without fail because I enjoy it and it helps me feel better and every once in a while people say I am good at it and…”

WRITING INTERRUPTED BY PHONE AND RETURNED, 30 or so minutes later…

I swept my mulberry trees profuse berries from my neighbor’s driveway because my neighbors are bothered by purple splotches on their driveway and perhaps, the residue on their shoes as a result which brings resultant purple blue into their home.

I did it out of care, this time, not anger as I had in the past.

I had a quick and strong impulse to ask forgiveness from my neighbors and not to make an excuse but to open the conversation to some of the struggles I’ve experienced over the past few years.

Would this help in understanding?

So here’s how it went – My phone went off so my five minutes was interrupted quite suddenly, and now, about forty minutes later I am back and thinking how these interruptions are one of the building materials blocks are made up of – the mortar, the stone work, the inner cords of steel and beams framing it all.

I was anxious when I started and now I feel calmer and the idea I have an option to be vulnerable and speak up to my neighbors is a big one. Also, coming with an energy of seeking forgiveness rather than being angry at them is huge.

The magical five minutes of writing, even broken in two, works miracles again.

Top 5 Methods to End Writer’s Block & Make #5for5BrainDump Work to Create More Content

December 27, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife

People get stuck on words everyday: can you relate to what I’m saying?

Sometimes people get stuck before they even start, the writer’s block happens before the thought of the pencil is put into the hand, before the computer is turned on, before the assignment of the term paper is given by the professor to the class.

My own daughter got writer’s block this Fall semester in college and I did what I do every day with people who come to me needing a breakthrough: I gave her some prompts without explaining why. I told her “Five minutes, just write for five minutes without worrying what your words say. Just trust me, just write.”

And she did just that. She wrote, without editing or thinking or planning or editing on each and every seemingly ridiculous prompt I offered her.

Guess what?

Her paper got done and she managed to get an A in a class she thought she was going to fail because she continued to write. She didn’t allow her negative thoughts or fear get in the way of the words that were waiting to be written.

The thing is, we need to let our words out.

We need to give space for those words to be “heard” by our fingers and translated into essays or instruction manuals or chapters of books or dialogue in the screenplay.

Are you with me?

Chances are you are here because you need to write something and you hit that wall we sometimes call “writer’s block” or sometimes we just call it “block”.

No matter what we call it, it has the same impact: we are unable to take our vision for what we want to say into a coherent written document.

This translates into an angry boss or a bad grade, perhaps, or at best not being able to express ourselves turns into an argument or a growing mountain of disagreement.

Here’s the thing: together we may prevent your writer’s block so easily. Ask this: “If you could discover how to overcome writer’s block in 5 different ways, would you be willing to try one (or more) to eliminate the possibility of pain writer’s block inevitably brings?”

Mark Twain wrote, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

These simple techniques will do exactly that: start you on your way to never having writer’s block again in 5 minute chunks of time. Just like that, you’re writing will start and continue over and over again in mini-writing-miracles so eventually your worry will be wiped clean. Any time you get stuck for words again, just do the practice again.

Magically – your words flow – just like that.

1. Word-Chant: Write the topic word or phrase repeatedly on the page. If you are alone, you may even say it aloud as you write. As you get into a rhythm, other words will begin to flow. Follow those words wherever they take you. Repeat as necessary within your 5 minute brain dump session.

2. Doodle on the page. Instead of trying for simply words, make shapes and squiggles while thinking of the word or phrase that is the subject of your writing. In the image below you will see the doodles for a brain dumper who was writing about “How to Create a Believable Character.” You may also find moving outside “conventional language” in this way helps a lot.

Doodling before you write helps a lot, especially if you have experienced any writing blocks at all.

3. Collapse the Inner Editor with Emily’s Method. Some writer’s get stuck with their brain dumps because they allow their inner editor or perfectionist (some call this “voice” the inner critic or for me, Miss Pizarro, my third grade teacher) space rather than fully turning the words over to flow. Emily Dickinson had a brilliant solution to this problem. She added plus signs as she wrote instead of searching for the “perfect” word, she jotted any word that might be a possibility onto the page beside or above the original word. See some examples of how that might look below.

4. Give yourself permission to write as horribly as possible for five minutes. This may be my favorite technique at all. It is so fun to be horrible with a flourish. Yes, my friend, you may be an awful writer. How exciting to think of it!

5. Borrow from a favorite “Amygdala Hijacking Technique.” Gleaned Daniel Goleman’s work with emotional intelligence. Your amygdala is the part of your brain that is responsible for your emotional responses and has the capacity to shut off your neocortex (where your logical thinking lives) instantaneously. In my creative life coaching practice, I train people to stop the hijack by turning their amygdala inside out. It is stopped by switching the brain to any other thought. I like to do so in fives so I suggest when folks start feeling that wild fear to name five things of any category – five types of green vegetables, five girls names that start with A, five cities in Europe, five favorite musicals – it can be anything at all. Just start making lists and watch where your interest goes. Write according to that interest which leads us to a bonus tip.If you aren’t having fun with your #5for5BrainDump process, walk away for 5 minutes and come back to your writing after you have had a drink of water, a bit of a stretch and if possible, watch an under three minute video that makes you laugh.

BONUS TIP: Try to write again, using one of these five techniques without pausing after the video. You’ll still be laughing. The writing will be fun. You will have switched from writer’s block to writing beneficially.

Instant miracles, infinite breakthroughs and more insights you ever imagined.

To participate in #5for5BrainDump, visit our sister site at 5For5BrainDump.com now.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot and on Periscope

Be sure to “Like” WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot and on Periscope

Be sure to “Like” WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)