5 Fun and Effective Ways To Get Out of a Creative Rut

Finding inspiration doesn’t have to be complicated.

We all have those days when it’s hard to find inspiration. It happens to everyone. It probably happens to Stephen King. In fact, I’m sure it happens to Stephen King.

And it happens to Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, Alice Munro, and John Scalzi.

It happens to me. It happens to you.

So what to do?

Here are some ways to get out of a creative rut that has worked wonders for me. Results may vary, but these five suggestions are all pretty easy to try and fun to do.

I’m sure at least one will help unstick you from your rut.

Visit a museum

This is my favorite way to get out of a creative stall.

When I lived in Providence, I was a healthy walk away from the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, which featured paintings by Rothko, van Gogh, Monet, Twombly, and more. Just walking through the different rooms of paintings and sculptures was enough to get my creative juices flowing. It didn’t matter if I was trying to write or paint or draw. The museum is what did it for me.

If you have an art museum near you, I strongly suggest visiting it and seeing what inspires you to go home and create.

If you don’t have any museums within reach, there are still great places to view art. Many communities hold art festivals during the summer months. Even if purchasing art isn’t in your budget, you can look at it for free. (Just don’t take pictures. That’s bad manners.)

Another place I’ve often found some mind-blowing artwork is in hospitals.

Yes, hospitals.

Hospitals and even smaller medical offices often have some very impressive artwork on their walls. I don’t know who’s responsible for picking out the decor, but I’ve been known to wander the halls of a hospital for up to an hour just looking at the artwork.

You can often find good artwork at hotels as well.

Keep your eyes open. There’s great art to be viewed in some surprising places. Heck, my local pizza place has some unique farm paintings outside the restrooms.

You never know.

But when you find it, feel free to get inspired by it.

Join a round-robin

Or something similar.

When I was in college back in the 80s, friends and I would pass around notebooks and write group stories.

Because it was that savage era before the commercial Internet, we physically passed notebooks around, adding a page or two to whatever the previous holder of the notebook wrote. Nowadays, you could easily set up a practice like this with friends using email or cloud apps.

One person starts a story and writes out five or ten paragraphs, then the next person takes up the story based on what was previously written. They go on for five or ten paragraphs, and then it goes on to the next person.

And so on.

The resulting story or poem may be a chaotic mess, but that’s not really the point. The point is to jumpstart your creativity by playing off another person’s creativity.

Collaboration can be a wonderful thing.

Take a class

Any class. Really.

In learning something new, you’re allowing your mind to expand, thus making you more receptive to inspiration. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking Japanese lessons at the local cultural center or hot yoga at the YMCA.

If you’re learning something new, you’re giving yourself that much more life to draw from.

Take a 30-day challenge

A 30-day challenge can be tricky, but it’s been known to yield results.

This involves taking a small, manageable creative act and committing to creating something every day for 30 days. The exact details can vary. Some make it a month which can go between 28 and 31 days. Some set their challenge for as little as two weeks or as long as a year.

And it doesn’t necessarily need to be a daily challenge. Singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton once did a “Thing-a-Week” challenge in which he wrote and recorded a new song every week for a year. It helped launch a relatively successful performing career.

You might do a sketch a day, a poem a day, a painting a week, or something similar. And the nice thing about these is that you can always go back to particular creations and rework them as you see fit.

A few years ago, I challenged myself to write a poem a day for July. I succeeded at the challenge, although some of those poems were real stinkers. I went back over some of them, however, and improved on them. Three were sold to professional poetry markets. Three more went to semi-pro markets. But the most important takeaway is that I benefited from the creative exercise in that I continue to write and occasionally sell poetry.

Time spent on a creative pursuit is never time wasted.

Challenge yourself and see what happens.

Surround yourself with creative people

The past year or so has been challenging for large public gatherings. Before Covid, I was a regular attendee at science fiction conventions — particularly those with a robust literary track that featured established authors, workshops, panels, and the like.

I never returned home not feeling inspired and engaged to create.

There are conventions or large gatherings for all sorts of creative pursuits, including film, art, music, and, of course, writing. People with similar passions and pastimes get together to share ideas, strategies, and sheer love for what they do.

Take advantage of that as much as the current health environment and your budget allow.

You won’t be sorry.

Inspiration is where you find it

Or… inspiration can be found anywhere.

That said, everyone gets into a rut from time to time. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a big deal. There are easy, fun ways to get out of that rut and jumpstart your creativity.

And then there are no limits.

Have fun!

Thank you for reading. I’d love to share more with you via my Bi-Weekly Word Roundup newsletter sent to subscribers every other Sunday. It will feature news, productivity tips, life hacks, and links to top stories making the rounds on the Internet. You can unsubscribe at any time.