- Sleep on it. The problem will fix itself after your subconscious has worked away at it overnight. He cites numerous examples of this from writing sketches.
- Lose it and rewrite it! Same idea - your subconscious continues to work on the story after you have finished writing it. So doing it again a month or two or year later will (OK - may) improve it.
- Avoid interruptions. Good writing is partly about building authentic characters and scenes - which requires you to carry around in your head the emotional state of several people at the same time. Nothing more destructive that the person from Porlock interrupting the flow of this - or children - or texts coming in - or radio announcements.
- Where to get ideas: We don't know! We do not get them from our laptops. We get them from our unconcsious. Get in the right mood, and they will flow. If you go around all day texting, doing stuff, and cramming your head with stuff, you will not have any creative ideas.
- How to create a creative mood. Make a tortoise enclosure. Your creative mind is a shy tortoise, that will only come out when it is sure that it is safe. Make an oasis. Do two things, so that your mind can shape :
- Boundaries of space - to avoid the interruptions.
- Boundaries of time - so that you will not be interrupted
A profound discovery
To know if you are any good at something, you need precisely the same skills as being good at it yourself. Most people who have no idea what they are doing have no idea that that they are doing it badly. It explains a lot about life. It explains hollywood. They have a terrible blind spots. The teachers of creative writing do not realise they are not very creative, and therefore may not value creativity even if they can recognise it. If the people in charge are egotistical, then they will want to claim everything good for themselves, which supresses and ruins the creative process itself.
