Reviving Creativity

For a couple of years now, I’ve been suffering from writer’s block. Sure, I’ve written my posts for the Pens Around the World blog. And that’s about it. I’d become a consumer of stories rather than a producer. In the past, reading novels and watching films would stimulate my own thoughts and story ideas, but for the longest time, that had ceased. And I believe I know why. Three years ago, I had three mini-strokes in one day. They didn’t cause any visible harm to my body. All the medical tests that were done didn’t show much of anything, but the so-called TIAs (Transient Ischemic Attacks) left me initially with brain fog that took a while to clear. After the fog had dissipated, I felt drained of the creativity that I’d once had.

But YEAH, there’s good news! I may have finally come out on the other side of it. It’s been a gradual process, a feeling in my head that started small, very small. It’s a feeling I vaguely remembered from when ideas for stories would percolate up in my thoughts and, at some point, like a mini-drone, would take off and land on a Word doc. Well, the feeling is returning, not with a big bang, but more like a slow reawakening, a getting out of bed and stretching and thinking: I really do want to have a look at that ol’ novel I was working on a long time ago. And there’s that short story that has been sitting in my digital drawer (you know, the one about time travel) that needs to be developed, maybe into something bigger. I think I might have some ideas on where to take it.

The rediscovery of my copy of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is also acting as a welcome catalyst. The author, Jessica Brody, has applied to novel writing the principles set out by Blake Synder in his screenwriting manual called Save the Cat! The elements of a novel have a lot in common with a screenplay. And of course, it’s all based on the three-act structure that is as old as the hills. Or at least as old as the plays (mostly tragedies) written by the Greek masters, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, in the fifth century BCE. Those plays had: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Ergo: three acts. Actually, I just read up on the history of playwriting, and it took some detours between then and now. However, this is where screenwriting has wound up. And it’s similar for the novel.

Brody goes into it a lot more, obviously. But the point is, anything that stimulates my brain into story production is welcome. I have a shelf full of writing books, and I intend to consult them as I go along my journey back to being a writer of stories. But it’s a bit like a highwire act, I just can’t look down.

Oh, in case you’re wondering about saving a cat, Brody says it’s a “writerly sleight of hand” to make an unlikeable hero into someone a reader can root for. They need to show they have some redeeming qualities by saving a cat from up a tree. Although maybe not literally. If you don’t get that, you may have to buy her book.

The first photo is my very own; the second comes courtesy of Mark Landon / Wikimedia Commons; the third is: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Circus_entertainer_Berta_Beeson_%28SAYRE_4960%29.jpg