Episode 40 –Writer’s Block and Refueling the Creative Tank

Creative Blocks are nothing new to writers. Creators struggle from time to time with the problem of how to start or finish a work of storytelling.

In my interview with Emile Adams, we talk about all the things having to do with writer's block and refueling the creative tank. Here are some resources we discussed that I want to highlight: The middle school club Emile mentioned was called Writer’s Block. It was an after-school creative writing group started by Mrs. Suzy Griffin and students at Edison Middle School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There were also shout-outs to Tim Long and Jerome Johnson from LoJoWERKz, Stephen Schwartz who wrote the musical version of Wicked, poet Sheila Black, Emile’s brother, playwright Will Inman, and their culturally savvy uncles in New York.

The “finishing the hat” reference Emile made comes from the lyric of a song from Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Sunday in the Park with George. It is also the title of a book by Sondheim about writing lyrics for the stage. For practicing writing stories in general, Emile and Beckett are both fan fiction writers. They also are familiar with Twitch and “Let’s Plays” which are mentioned during the podcast.

We talked about Emile’s dark family comedy, I Wish You Actually Liked Me (and other familial impossibilities). There were mentions of several resources including NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writer’s Month. We talked about art video games as well as some of her favorite games from the last 20 years up including Chop Suey, Brave, A Story About my Uncle, Bird Story, Undertale, Pharoah, and What Is A Belly Button? Finally, Emile encouraged everyone to travel. For her cross-country trip, Emile used AtlasObscura.com which led her to the fascinating Weeki Wachee Mermaids show in northern Florida.

If you listen to the podcast be sure and listen until the end of the interview for Concise Advice from the Interview, and Words of Wisdom from George.

Also, in case you are interested, here’s Emile’s Adams Mai Tai recipe from the podcast:
2 oz dark rum
2 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange liqueur
2 oz ginger ale
Splash of juice from the maraschino cherry jar
Garnish with a chunk of pineapple and a maraschino cherry

Concise Advice from the Interview is where I share bits of advice from my guests. Here are 12 bits from playwright and author, Emile Adams:
12)Always have something to work on that excites you
11) Give yourself “mulling time”
10) A good idea won’t leave you
9) Have someone in your life with whom you can share your ideas
8) Fan Fiction and journaling can be good ways to get ideas out of your head
7) Wait a month before your first pass at editing your work
6) Treat your unfinished work as an exercise rather than a failure
5) Enjoy someone else’s creativity to fill your creative tank
4) Re-experience your own creativity. Distance will help you see it in a new light
3) Travel somewhere weird, do weird stuff
2) Don’t work on one thing for months and months and months
1) Feed your creative bits

Check out the blog, SallyPAL.com, for articles and podcast episodes. You can be a “Sally PAL” by signing up for a FREE Creator’s Notebook insert at SallyPAL.com/join. Thank you for following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, joining, & thank you for listening.

If you are downloading and listening on your drive to work, or falling asleep to my Internet musings like my sister does, let me know you’re out there. I want you to share your stories. Storytelling through plays, dances, music, and other types of performances is the most important thing we do as a culture. That’s why I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers. All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination. Now… Go feed your creative bits!