We've all been there: the essay's due tomorrow, and you still have no idea what you're going to write about. Or, worse, you think you have a great idea, but when you sit down to start working on it, it just leads to a dead end. The creative juices aren't flowing; you have writer's block; basically, it's the worst. I write this from the thick of a creative drought, and after hitting multiple dead ends of my own, I decided to pull together some writing about creativity, creative processes and getting unstuck.

1. From this FiveThirtyEight article, on keeping an unstructured creative process

"Most creative geniuses don’t start with a specific goal and follow it through with deliberate practice, said Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead, they maintain an openness to discovering whatever arises."

This article describes the process of using PicBreeder, a website on which users "evolve" abstract, grayscale images to create realistic, colorful art. The key insight is that one does not create an image of, say, a butterfly by selecting the image that looks most like a butterfly at each iteration of the process; rather, the best images come from spontaneous evaluations — "That blob looks like a flower, so I will make it look more like a flower — wait, now, a few iterations later, it looks like a butterfly, so I'll start pursuing that," and so on. As it turns out, creative innovation often results from this sort of "blind" thought process. (See also: "How to Cultivate the Art of Serendipity.")

2. From "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anne Lamott

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft."

In other words, it is better to write something bad down and revise it, rather than to think of the perfect idea and painstakingly labor over each perfect word.

3. From "Understanding Misunderstandings" by Trish Roberts-Miller

"In terms of writing your papers, research indicates that thinking a lot about extra-textual intentions (e.g., getting a good grade, impressing a boss, getting an article published) is closely associated with writing blocks. Shifting your attention, as much as possible, to writing an effective paper — that is, one that effectively persuades an informed and intelligent opposition — will generally prevent writing blocks at the same time that it may well get you the kind of results you want."

I read Roberts-Miller's essay for the rhetoric class I took last fall; the essay itself deconstructs various aspects of rhetorical analysis, but the above paragraph generalizes to many types of creative work — for me, focusing on pageviews, grades or money has almost never led me to produce creative work I'm proud of. (See also: Drive and intrinsic motivation in creative work — but also searching for a calling in places other than "within yourself.")

4. From "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard

"Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?"

Annie Dillard can write a description of a tree into a meditation on mortality. I'd take her advice on profundity any day.

5. From "Your Elusive Creative Genius," a TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert

"People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity 'daemons'...

So the ancient artist was protected from certain things, like, for example, too much narcissism, right? If your work was brilliant, you couldn't take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame. "

Gilbert gave this highly-viewed TED talk after the publication of "Eat, Pray, Love," as she was terrorized by the feeling that she had already "peaked." In the talk, she reminds audience members and herself to not tie their sense of worth to the the success of their creative work.

6. From Haruki Murakami's "Paris Review" interview

"I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story."

Related to the first item, it is OK — especially in fiction writing but also in life — to not know where you're going or to leave major parts of the future unplanned. The suspense might even drive the process.

7. From this New Yorker article, on creativity, productivity, and work

"By the same token, the unconstrained curiosity and organic, natural emotionalism of the 'creative imagination' are unlikely to be felt within the strictures of work. Work is demanding, structured and rewarding. But if you yearn for the sense of imaginative transcendence and openness to the world that Wordsworth described in the 'Prelude,' you’re not very likely to find it in front of your computer or in a conference room. You’d be better off clearing your head and taking a walk in the woods."

This article distinguishes the original idea of creativity — the Romantic conception of "creative imagination" — from the modern idea that creativity must be tied to productivity. The author then separates "creation," which is to generate a product, from "creativity," which is to generate ideas.