Trying to wrangle the subconscious is part of the excitement and part of the burden of the artist. By its very nature, it does not follow a rigid path forward. The shadowy subconscious meanders. And sometimes we lose sight of it along the way. Often, in the midst of a creative project, we will feel spent – all of our ideas have dwindled to a seeming dead end. The muse has stopped speaking to us.  I have two strategies for getting past this juncture. First – when feeling stuck, I often return to the skeleton of the story, that little one-to-two pages synopsis that I wrote out for the piece, or even just the notes that I scribbled down before getting all serious with the prose. Every once in a while, there will be a little note left along the way, something that seemed out of place at the time that I wrote it out. But now it offers a clue for how to proceed. It is as if the subconscious was already rambling ahead, connecting the dots that I would need to put the story together. So when faced with a block, return to the beginning. More often than not, the answer will be there for you.

Secondly — I also find that I need to keep a scribble pad next to me while I write, for often the subconscious works at a more furious pace than my fingers can keep up with – so I will just scrawl something across the pad. It will be almost entirely illegible, but it will be just enough to capture the little detail that I need to stitch the story together. So often, I find that the subconscious works at a much faster pace than the rational mind, and it can only leave little shards of inspiration along the way, available to be picked up when appropriate. And when the mystery of what you are working on begins to take shape, then it all becomes more exciting than burdensome. You can enjoy the process so much more.

Photo by Jasmina Rojko on Unsplash