On using your original source of imagination to overcome writer's block

There are times when your imagination runs dry. It could be from overwork or stress of another sort. It could be that you are simply tired. Unfortunately, such times can coincide with when you need to come up with a new story, new piece of art or new song. Sometimes the pressure of having to come up with a complete idea or at least the basis of all the ideas to come in one fell swoop is enough to have the imagination stalling in a form of shock.

There's plenty of solutions available for what's called writer's block, with advice from going on a run to taking a boat trip. All are valid and many will get you the result you want. There is, however, a difference between a forced idea such as one found in a newspaper article and one fresh from your own imaginings and insights. The difference is realised as something so insubstantial as a sense of playfulness or freedom. Normally you'd think these elements to any form of art wouldn't be so important when art can be made quite well without them. But I suppose it is fairly safe to say that the difference between good and great art and writing comes down to these insubstantial elements.

So, if you've got yourself a case of writer's block and you're looking to overcome it you can take that boat trip and observe those around you or read the newspaper and pull out interesting stories. There is a chance you will pick just the right story and a sense of play falls upon you before you even pick up a pen or brush. Or you can find your original source, or form, of imagination and apply it to whatever is currently concerning you.

When you were a child you would have tried all sorts of artistic things, whether you knew it or not. You may have had a paintbrush handed to you by a frustrated play school teacher who just wanted you to waste some time and time waste you did with great joy. You may have loved playing with sand or sloshing water about in whatever pattern you preferred. You may have formed imaginary friends and held tea parties or you may have excelled at building Paddle Pop stick (ice blocks for those who don't know about Paddle Pops) weapons to throw at your siblings. There was something you did as a child that at first was just fun but then became a bit of a skill or identifier.

For example, I was the child who did such a thing as imagine two large and patterned rocks as car parks or mines and run my matchbox cars over them while imagining scenes. My sister was the child who would skip about the back yard collecting leaves in a basket while singing to herself or her imaginary friend (we were never sure). My brother was the one who loved to make himself into a crocodile at the pool and chase his sisters about, snapping his hand/arm jaws the entire time. All of us excelled in various types of backyard warfare.

These times flew by rather quickly but they are lasting memories of who we are. These were things we did that identified us. You couldn't swap them around easily. There was no way I had an imaginary friend but I was definitely one for imagining large scenes. And while I tried on the crocodile form it was really best suited to my brother. These activities reflected the wells of imagination and interest that were originally there. People, places, dramas, big scenes, strange animals, playful human interactions. Of all the things you did as a child, there has to be something that spells you or holds much of what you were as a child. And it is that which you could easily draw on to create playfully.

Having an imaginary friend means you're deeply interested in both others and yourself on a close scale. You like relationships and don't like being alone much. Or at least you didn't when a child. Being creative now, you might have departed from focusing on relationships and people to things like politics or social issues. It seems like the two should be the same but what's happened is you've skipped from having imaginary friends to having imaginary scenes. It would be like my sister trying to be me and it would work out just as well as my time trying to be the crocodile. You could do it, with effort, but it won't feel altogether natural. Skipping back to creating close relationships may make you think you will have to give up on wider issues but this is false. Don't forget about microcosm viewpoints on macrocosm issues.

In all, to solve writer's block, a lag in inspiration or the desire to create just look to your past. Find what it was to be you back then and incorporate it into the work that is a reflection of you now. You can still be smart and insightful, cutting edge or old school with a twist, but with the addition of some original interests there is a greater chance your final work will include some of that all important playfulness and sense of freedom.

Time travel in fiction: structure and function

Time travel in fiction is often used as a plot device for discovering what would happen if a particular issue in society, technology or otherwise went unaddressed. If not used for this purpose then time travel is used to take the reader to another time and space where more opportunities are afforded the writer to weave the tale they want.

Suspension of disbelief is needed in any writing of time travel simple because it isn't (as yet - hopefully) possible to travel in time. First you have to suspend your disbelief while read of the time machine's structure. As we can't travel through time and have no real technology for it, any technology portrayed in fiction will be fantastical.

From: forevergeek.com

From: 10yl.blogspot.com

From: alienhippy.wordpress.com

Then, as a reader, you need to suspend your disbelief concerning the makeup of the world you are taken to in order to focus on the issue at hand; what the protagonist, the world and the antagonist will reveal as issues to address in our current society or our own hearts.

But what you need to develop the most in reading or writing time travel literature is not your imagination or your ability to suspend your disbelief. What is needed is the ability to think logically about the structure of time. Without this, the story unravels for writer and reader alike. 

And by that I don't mean the way scientists analyse time, using relativity, quantum fluctuations, the expanding universe, the deconstruction of what is 'now', the hypothesis that there is no past or future but rather just now, the uncertainty principle or any other theory related to time and space's structure (which is all related to gravity and energy and takes far more time and mathematical ability to explain than I have).

I mean that a writer must choose whether the past can or can't be changed and what overall structure time has.

Time structures:

• Time runs in a single stream and no matter what you do nothing will change. Time travel to the past is impossible but travelling to the future is possible. This is a little problematic if you consider that the future's past can't be changed either so all actions taken will be tied down as the final act. Using this structure would allow a writer to move in leaps forward in time but otherwise all other actions are as grounded as in normal fiction. Travelling back from the future is impossible. Perfect for Robinson Crusoe type books, where the protagonist is stranded in a new land.

• Time runs in a single stream but you can travel to the past and future and change events but the past will remain as it is currently structured as any actions taken were always going to be taken. (Futurama is a perfect example.) The writer is tied down a little with regards to the story's own internal structure but there is plenty of room for the imagination to fly. The time stream remains a single stream but loops form in it as time is travelled. What always bugs me about this structure is that when time loops it has to re-join in the past and split when reaching the present (one stream looping back and the other moving forward). The loop is both separate and connected at once and although the stories created using this structure are often pleasing, I just can't stand that last little quandary.

• Time runs in a single stream up until the point of time travel. The past and future can be changed and any changes made can be changed back by travelling further back and preventing the initial change. Even with these travels time remains a single stream so there is no way of moving from one time to another without altering events. This is where the 'don't step on anything' comes in as the changes can be unpredictable. In fact, making changes is unavoidable so limiting them is the perfect plan for the survival of the present and future.

• Time runs in a single stream up until the point of time travel. The past and future can be changed but by changing the past you create a new time line separate from the previous. This will allow the protagonist to travel across times as one would parallel universes but by either travelling back to a particular event and then forward again or by leaping across the 'gap' or 'void' between times. To construct worlds using this requires more suspension of disbelief than any other as the structure of time itself is moving away from the understandable. While everyone is becoming quite used to the idea of parallel universes, parallel times is still a little hard to understand as they aren't that different to parallel universes but they can be changed by time travel where the universes usually aren't (unless the writer is using both parallel universes and time travel in the structure of their book, thereby melting the brain of all their readers).

• All times appear together as a result of time breaking down. The structure is a flat time-space inclusive of remnants of all times and spaces. The structure is simple in that there is one time yet complex in that all times are now included and must be represented. This is where equal amounts of creative play and science blend.

So before you start out writing a book including time travel, make sure to pick the structure that suits your story the most. If you choose a very complex structure of time you will have to plot out all the ramifications of each action and stick by them closely as a reader will become incredibly lost if you step outside the structure of time in your book to write whatever you want to happen, disregarding what should happen.

Just a note: Editing time travel books is taxing on the brain. Good luck if you are. I mean it.

Quirky bookmarks

I've been buried in superannuation and editing all this morning and to lighten the mental strain I went searching for quirky bookmarks I could buy and ideas for ones I could make when I next need a mental break.

I want this one! Just pondering how I could make one.

Cute, though I can imagine breaking a lot of them, the tangles they could make and torn pages.

These look like they'd be simple to make but I have to figure out the pattern.

I like these. Drowning in words... I know the feeling.

Writing and the imagination

Short note: Agreed but you have to gain knowledge to grow an excess of imagination. First things first.

Writers often joke about their imagination, saying it is like hearing voices, having imaginary friends or (in extreme cases of hyperbole) they say they must be a touch schizophrenic. This isn't the case at all as you can see from the medical definitions below. The jokes are just jokes and hyperbole, hyperbole.

Hearing voices
Auditory hallucinations are "Illusory auditory perception of strange nonverbal sounds. Illusory perception; a common symptom of severe mental disorder."

Imaginary friends

"Imaginary friends and imaginary companions are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship or other interpersonal relationship takes place in the imagination rather than external physical reality. Imaginary friends are fictional characters created for improvisational role-playing. They often have elaborate personalities and behaviors. They seem real but are ultimately unreal to their creators, as shown by studies.

Imaginary friends are made often in childhood, sometimes in adolescence, and rarely in adulthood. They often function as tutelaries when played with by a child. They reveal, according to several theories of psychology, a child's anxieties, fears, goals and perceptions of the world through that child's conversations. They are, according to some children, physically indistinguishable from real people, while others say they see their imaginary friends only in their heads."

Schizophrenia
"Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder (or a group of disorders) marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviours. Schizophrenic patients are typically unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have enhanced perceptions of sounds, colours, and other features of their environment. Most schizophrenics, if untreated, gradually withdraw from interactions with other people, and lose their ability to take care of personal needs and grooming."


All jokes aside, I do find cause to be interested in the level and type of imagination of anyone in the arts. Painting, sculpture, drawing, sewing, design, architecture, writing, choreography, fashion etc etc demand a level of imagination above what is required in your average office job. That is not to say imagination isn't required in most jobs, just that the level is different. I have experienced the deep seated boredom that comes from try to curb the imagination for routine and cannot conceive on anyone who simply has to follow their imagination being happy in such positions. Imagining potential results from a certain action but not imagining anything further is tedious and limited. Not day dreaming freely is impossible. Not day dreaming in brilliant colour, complexity and high emotion is like eating dry biscuits without topping or a drink. Blah.

So what do you call this excess of imagination and artfulness? What is it to create imaginary worlds and delve into them so much that returning to reality is a shock? What does it mean when a person without obvious mental disorders of any sort can easily joke that they do simply because of an excess of imagination?

So here is a start.

Imagination
"Etymology: L, imaginare, picture to oneself
1 the ability to form, or the act or process of forming, mental images or conscious concepts of things that are not immediately available to the senses.
2 (in psychology) the ability to reproduce images or ideas stored in the memory by the stimulation or suggestion of associated ideas or to regroup former ideas and concepts to form new images and ideas concerned with a particular goal or problem. See also fantasy."

Artistic
"1. Of or relating to art or artists: the artistic community.
2. Sensitive to or appreciative of art or beauty: an artistic temperament.
3. Showing imagination and skill: an artistic design."

Create
"tr.v. cre·at·ed, cre·at·ing, cre·ates
1. To cause to exist; bring into being. See Synonyms at found¹.
2. To give rise to; produce: That remark created a stir.
3. To invest with an office or title; appoint.
4. To produce through artistic or imaginative effort: create a poem; create a role."

Temperament
"1. a. The manner of thinking, behaving, or reacting characteristic of a specific person: a nervous temperament. See Synonyms at disposition.
b. The distinguishing mental and physical characteristics of a human according to medieval physiology, resulting from dominance of one of the four humors.
2. Excessive irritability or sensitiveness: an actor with too much temperament.
3. Music Equal temperament."

Disposition
"1. One's usual mood; temperament: a sweet disposition.
2. a. A habitual inclination; a tendency: a disposition to disagree.
b. A physical property or tendency: a swelling with a disposition to rupture.
3. Arrangement, positioning, or distribution: a cheerful disposition of colours and textures; a convoy oriented into a north-south disposition.
4. A final settlement: disposition of the deceased's property.
5. An act of disposing; a bestowal or transfer to another.
6. a. The power or liberty to control, direct, or dispose.
b. Management; control."

None of these really shed light on why such levels of imagination vary but they do highlight that there isn't any particular link to mental disorders in just having an excessive imagination.

So is it linked to intelligence? I have to ask as many would claim this to be so. Personally, although both are connected I don't think that imagination is limited to the arts alone or that it is the only aspect of the mind that indicates a person has high intelligence. Still, I must cover this too.

Intelligence
"1. a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
b. The faculty of thought and reason.
c. Superior powers of mind. See Synonyms at mind.
2. An intelligent, incorporeal being, especially an angel.
3. Information; news. See Synonyms at news.
4. a. Secret information, especially about an actual or potential enemy.
b. An agency, staff, or office employed in gathering such information.
c. Espionage agents, organisations, and activities considered as a group: "Intelligence is nothing if not an institutionalised black market in perishable commodities" (John le Carré).""

As instructed, here is the mind definition

Mind
'1. The human consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.
2. The collective conscious and unconscious processes in a sentient organism that direct and influence mental and physical behaviour.
3. The principle of intelligence; the spirit of consciousness regarded as an aspect of reality.
4. The faculty of thinking, reasoning, and applying knowledge: Follow your mind, not your heart.
5. A person of great mental ability: the great minds of the century.
6. a. Individual consciousness, memory, or recollection: I'll bear the problem in mind.
b. A person or group that embodies certain mental qualities: the medical mind; the public mind.
c. The thought processes characteristic of a person or group; psychological makeup: the criminal mind.
7. Opinion or sentiment: He changed his mind when he heard all the facts.
8. Desire or inclination: She had a mind to spend her vacation in the desert.
9. Focus of thought; attention: I can't keep my mind on work.
10. A healthy mental state; sanity: losing one's mind."

Intelligence and the mind are defined without restrictions to excessive imagination but there is cause to link the two. To be imaginative you need a certain level of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory and imagination along with consciousness of your consciousness, reflectiveness, thinking, reasoning and application of knowledge. You can be imaginative in maths or any of the sciences as well as imaginative in writing or any of the other arts. To excel in any field requiring imagination to create and reform ideas of any sort requires an excess of imagination.

And still there is no answer, just a validation of why the imaginative choose the jobs they are often in.

Why is there ever an excess of imagination?
This likely comes down to evolution.

Evolution
1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. See Synonyms at development.
2. a. The process of developing.
b. Gradual development.
3. Biology a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
b. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.
4. A movement that is part of a set of ordered movements.
5. Mathematics The extraction of a root of a quantity.

Very, very simply put:
We are creatures without deadly defences, a specific food source or any sort of instinctual hunting strategies. We are soft creatures who survive because we are adapted to constant adaption of our behaviour to our environment (so much so we often adapt the environment to our behaviour). To constantly adapt behaviour means to constantly think of new ways of doing things and then enacting them, some to fail and some to succeed. To fail to imagine a new way of doing things could lead a person to meet with death. The losses pare away some of the imaginative along with the unimaginative but not all. Sometimes the unimaginative restrict the imaginative leading to losses happening all round.

Build on that over thousands of years and imagination becomes a dominant trait, leaving most of us with some predisposition towards making up stuff on the fly. For those that don't, well, we are a pack animal remember. Within our close circles we love and care for our fellows and within the wide community we condemn acts of violence (not to say we don't often act violently, just that the vast majority of us try hard to suppress it and make sure we don't kill anyone, thus becoming natural selectors in evolution). There isn't much of a problem with not being imaginative at all (a rare condition indeed) as long as you are loved and are careful.

So imagination, intelligence, survival and evolution are all linked to various degrees to someone sitting down at a computer or scribbling on a pad of paper in the process of creating and recording fictitious worlds, characters and societies, which doesn't seem to benefit anyone much until you realise that this is one of the main ways ideas are transferred and recorded (no matter if the idea is couched in fiction or non-fiction). We could keep living without excessive imagination but I doubt we'd develop as nicely (evolve is too linked to progress and progress is too linked to betterment and that isn't always the case with imagination now is it). Excessive imagination allows us to develop and build/alter/pare away methods much quicker and is the reason behind why society is moving oh so very fast nowadays.

Tea and the imagination: a writer's guide

Studies show (I hate writing that but apparently studies show...) that tea is good for a great many things but I use it primarily to wake me up and to focus. It is my saviour on zombie mornings and my preferred method of relaxing when I've overdone the brain pan.

The reason I began with studies show was because I thought I'd say more than "I like tea" and "I'm dying for a cup of tea right now". So, tea is said to boost mental alertness, which explains things for me. It contains the amino acid L-theanine, which actively alters the attention networks of the brain,  as found by human trials begun in September 2007 (I wouldn't mind being a subject in that test). It has been proposed that theanine affects the brain's neurotransmitters, increasing alpha brain-wave activity. That apparently just means that tea makes you calmer and yet more alert.

On to caffeine. The caffeine content in a cup of green tea is generally between 15 and 50 mg. Caffeine consumption has been found to help reduce the likelihood of Parkinson's disease and provide a temporary increase in the drinker's short term memory. Of interest, caffeine consumption has been linked with the reduction in duration and severity of headaches. No wonder my zombie-mode disappears fairly quickly after drinking tea.

Personally, I find my thinking clears and I can make connections that I otherwise wouldn't. Also, if I ever stop I'd likely melt into a puddle but that is by the by. In short, I need tea to write effectively and to break through those times when the blank screen seems to be taunting me.

Don't forget to practice a little imagination and “read” your tea leaves. Even if you can’t do so using the traditional methods, you can just make it up. "I see a bird... or is it a plane. Travel in the future? Or super powers."

Just a note on tea for your benefit:

If you add citrus juice to your tea the antioxidant catechins are absorbed into the bloodstream at a greater rate, amongst other things. If you add milk on the other hand you will block the normal healthy effects of tea in protecting your cardiovascular system. Both types of tea have benefits so you could pick your benefits with your tea, mixing and matching as you please.

Now, I'm going to have that tea.