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Bet you guys didn't know I drive by the Bengal's Stadium every day when I, uh, drive into work.
In fact, I drive all around it every day, and I get to look at pretty bridges and stuff.
That's the nice part about living in Cincinnati.
I work at a company called Epipheo. I'm a Creative Video Strategist here and I'm going
to ask them, some of the people I work with, this question about how do you get past creator's
block, where you just don't know what to make anymore. You're not sure, uh, how to come
up with ideas, what to do next. I'm gonna ask some of the people I work with here because
a lot of them are super creative people. And I got my little guy with me, my son. You gonna
hang out at Epipheo with daddy today at work? Yeah, it's gonna be fun, isn't it? Let's go
in.
When it comes to writer's block with writing scripts, I, I find that it's very helpful
if I get into it a thesaurus, and find my own little thesaurus wormhole. Um, eventually,
I'm, I'm usually able to overcome my writer's block.
Usually, the first thing I'll do is like, I'll just, I'll just write. Like, I'll write
complete and utter crap until I get a line or two that works, and usually, once I have
a starting point, I'm pretty good. If I'm just deadlocked, I'll talk to somebody else,
like, what ideas do you have and usually that's enough to rip off of something, or sometimes,
I'll just do something else. Like, I'll go for a walk or I'll, like, throw darts at a
dartboard, just something to, like, something that I can think through but be distracted
by at the same time.
Usually, and I can't think of, like any good ideas, I'll just put up bad ideas on a piece
of paper, and I'll just write down any idea, good idea or bad idea, whatever, and I'll
let that kind of kick start me to eventually, hopefully, come up with a good idea.
The trick to getting through that is just keep your hands moving. There's a reason that
in Spanish, they have one word for to make and to do, hacer. Ya know, like, you have
to physically be doing something. You have to keep on moving, even if it's trash, even
if it's something that you're never gonna show anybody, you just have to work through
it because if you sit there and stare and get paralyzed by the infinite possibilities
of that blank thing that you're looking at, then you will never get through. It, it doesn't
live up here. It lives here, you know, in what you're actually doing.
So when I get writer's bloc k, I like to step away, kind of let my brain decompress. So
usually I eat something and then I come back to it, and if that doesn't solve the problem
for me, then I go and I ask somebody else for their input, get a little bit of, uh,
outside brainstorming help. Get the juices flowing and then I can bust through it.
When I have creator's block, I pretty much don't get anything done until I realize that
I have no time left to finish it, and then when it's crunch time, it just always ends
up seeming to happen.
I have to do something completely different. So sometimes I, it's, whether it's going to
a cafe or just going for a walk, something to completely distract me, watch, even just
watching a TV show or an episode or something completely different. I can usually get back
in the groove because I'm not thinking about the same thing over and over.
Totally read everything, watch all the things, go to shows, even dog shows. Seeing all of
your stuff, seeing what you're doing, same things you see, seeing a script you wrote.
Try to find like what the simplest thing it is that you're trying to create or talk about
in its simplest form, like even one word, and then build from that simple form out.
So, don't start with a ton of details and all these things. Also, the more requirements
you have to do something, the more creative you can be to execute that.
I think for getting over a creative block, the Internet's a great tool for that because
it's, you've got to start looking at different things, like, looking in the news, or looking,
just like searching around trying to find anything that I can find. Or like a really
random thing is like typing a string of numbers into Google Images. Then you just get like
random images that hopefully, you're like sparking things, or like, combining opposites
where it's like I'm gonna tell a story. I don't know, maybe I'll tell a story about
a vegetarian lion or a fish that's allergic to water, or something that is, like, just
to help get something stirring and going from there. Just like looking at the stuff that
inspires you, like movies, artists, whatever, just looking through their work. What do you
do?
That, that sometimes works for me.
Yeah.
I mostly have to tough through it.
Yeah.
Right? It's like you're dead. You have no creative ideas. Creativity on demand doesn't
work, right? You press through it. You tough through it. You keep on working, and then
you come back to it the next day and hopefully something fresh has happened.
I hope some of their advice was helpful. It was for me. The main thing I do is actually,
I just keep like an ongoing list of ideas when I have them, um, on my phone on an Evernote
little document, and I just kinda, because sometimes I'll have like a creative like spree.
I'll think of a ton of things, so I just like to get all those ideas down when I can, and
then when I come up against like, "Oh, I don't know what to do this week for a video," or,
"I don't know how to do this creatively," I usually go back to that document and I'm
like, "Oh, yeah, I could do that." You know, and then I'll cross it off my list and go
ahead and make it. So that works well for me.
I'd love to hear from you guys in the comments below how you would answer this person's question,
how you get past creator's block. If this is your first time hanging out, please subscribe.
We do these Q and A videos for you guys every Thursday. Tuesdays, we take a look at online
video news and what it means for those of us who are video creators. On Wednesdays,
we do some YouTube tips and ideas for ya, and so we'd love to have you guys join us
for those next week. Talk to you then, bye.