Creative writing tips?

[spiritsword]

Hi all...as a kid, and during high school I could come up with all sorts of creative ideas to write about, but then I sort of fried my creative circuits with drugs and the ideas just don't flow anymore...I figured I'd ask here if anyone has any tips on how to get that childlike creativity back? I know it lives inside me but I have trouble accessing it...I can write guitar riffs all day long but I really want to use words as well, any tips?
Thanks, beautiful people!

[meicalabawen]

Use the techniques I created for Liberty Hall Writers. Some info is here, but in general what you do is:

• Bypass your internal editor
• Bypass your pet ideas

You do this by setting up a timed writing exercise. We use 90 minutes. You also set up a random trigger for the exercise. The trigger can be an image, a word, phrase, music, poem etc. It is best to do this with friends, to make it into an exercise.

When you are ready, look at the trigger item. You should never have seen it before. Then for the next 90 minutes try to write a COMPLETE short story.

Forcing yourself to write a story within 90 minutes also forces you to bypass your inner editor. You simply don't have time to worry about what you are writing.

Using a trigger forces you to set aside your pet ideas (we all have them) and just write without agonizing over whether or not what you are writing is the next bestseller or whether or not it 'fits' with your goals.

Rinse and repeat for at least 10 times and you will start to learn to write on demand; which is critical to getting anything done.

Writing short short stories forces you to strip away all the non-essential crap in your writing, which makes for a cleaner, more readable style.

It works.

Mike (aka Meical abAwen) founder of Liberty Hall Writers and co-founder of Show Me Your Lits online writing groups.

http://www.libertyhallwriters.org/