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    Unblocked: How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming and Preventing Creative Blocks
    Unblocked: How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming and Preventing Creative Blocks
    Unblocked: How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming and Preventing Creative Blocks
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    Unblocked: How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming and Preventing Creative Blocks

    By Joelle Steele

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    About this ebook

    All creative people can become blocked at one time or another. They may be unable to come up with fresh ideas, get a project off the ground, or finish their projects. They may not even realize that a block exists. "Unblocked" is a guide to identifying several types of creative blocks, removing and handling those blocks, and developing work habits and other practices that prevent those blocks from reoccurring.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoelle Steele
    Release dateApr 7, 2014
    ISBN9781940388083
    Unblocked: How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming and Preventing Creative Blocks
    Author

    Joelle Steele

    Joelle Steele writes mystery and ghost novels and non-fiction books about face & ear ID, handwriting forgery, art, astrology, cat care, genealogy, and horticulture. And, she is a legal writer of contract templates for small business. She has extensive published credits and has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher since 1973.

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      Book preview

      Unblocked - Joelle Steele

      Unblocked:

      How to Expand Your Creativity by Overcoming & Preventing Creative Blocks

      By Joelle Steele

      Copyright Joelle Steele 2014

      Published by Many Hats Publications/Joelle Steele Enterprises Publishing at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Chapter 1: Creativity

      Chapter 2: Environmental & Structural Blocks

      Chapter 3: Intellectual & Educational Blocks

      Chapter 4: Perceptual & Cognitive Blocks

      Chapter 5: Emotional, Psychological, & Spiritual Blocks

      Chapter 6: Culture, Family, & Friendship Blocks

      Chapter 7: Career, Field, & Position Blocks

      Other Books by Joelle Steele

      About the Author

      Preface

      I was born creative. Everyone is, some more than others. And creative inspiration is around us everywhere, every day. But in my earliest days as an artist and writer, I discovered that my creativity was occasionally thwarted. I was blocked and couldn't figure out why or what to do about it. I met other creative people who were also blocked, either chronically or sporadically. After years of discussions with people about creative blocks, I found that while most experts on creativity tend to zero in on cognitive blocks, there are other kinds of creative blocks that can be far more disabling and are almost never addressed as such. They are so significant that they can impact not only our creative pursuits but our entire lives, and so I included them in this book.

      Over the years I have taught a variety of writing and art classes, and I've also taught one on expanding creativity that specifically addresses creative blocks. I used the materials for that class to jumpstart this little book. For the cover, I used an old Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) engraving called Melencolia 1 (1514). It depicts the mythological Melencolia, daughter of the god Saturn, and has been variously described as a frustrated thinker or an artist creatively blocked.

      Thank you to Gretchen Wilding for her editing assistance. Thanks also to my many creative friends and acquaintances, and to their friends and acquaintances, whose experiences were used to illustrate the various examples covered in this book.

      Joelle Steele

      May 2014

      Chapter 1: Creativity

      The ability to create – to express the distinct, the unique, the exceptional, the extraordinary – is innate in every human being. It is creativity that impels you to be different from everyone else, that drives you not only to create differently but to think differently about life and to live your life differently from those around you. And the more creative you become, the more courage you need to muster up in order to continue marching along to the beat of your distinctly different drum.

      Creativity is always within you. It is a driving force that brings great joy with every tap of the key, every stroke of the brush, every note voiced, and every idea brought one step closer to fruition. Creativity is not only found in the arts, but in every aspect of life, including careers that would seem to be very uncreative, such as those found in business and science. In those careers, creativity is more likely to be referred to as invention or innovation. No matter where creativity is found or what it is called, it is the sheer ecstasy it brings that drives people to exercise it.

      Creativity does not decline as you age or as you become more educated or as you grow into a responsible adult. However, if you do not continuously exercise your creative muscles by always exceeding and looking beyond the parameters of your education and experience, you will ultimately become less flexible in your ability to be creative. It is not a condition of age; it is a condition of will. You must want to create – love to create – and be willing to detach yourself from whatever it is that inhibits your creativity and holds you back.

      For even the most willing creative person, there are many kinds of obstacles – blocks – to creativity that can rear their ugly heads at a moment's notice. What does it mean to be creatively blocked? For most, it simply means that you are stuck and unable to move forward with your book or painting or music or whatever it is that you are creating. You may be blocked due to a lack of fresh ideas or you may have a dynamite idea that you cannot seem to get off the ground or that you find you are unable to finish once you are half-way through it. You may not be able to put into words what it is that got you stuck, and you may be repeatedly stuck for days, weeks, months, or even years, shelving numerous viable projects along the way simply because you don't know how to resolve your creative blocks.

      You may try to re-do your work several times over or you may try to become re-inspired in an effort to move forward with your project. But to overcome a creative block, you must first identify the specific source of it so that you can find an appropriate solution. That's how you become unstuck and complete your work. It is also how you implement preventative measures to avoid getting creatively blocked on future projects.

      There are probably as many kinds and combinations of creative blocks as there are people experiencing them. You could be stuck because of a combination of blocks that all produce the same end result: a stoppage of your creative flow. There are basically five categories of creative blocks: Environmental-Structural, Intellectual-Educational, Perceptual-Cognitive, Emotional-Psychological-Spiritual, Culture-Family-Friends, and Career-Field-Position.

      On the following pages, we will explore how these blocks are formed and what you can do to overcome them and prevent their future occurrences.

      Chapter 2: Environmental & Structural Blocks

      Structural

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