My Three Best Recommendations for Overcoming Creative Blocks

Some oblique, and not so oblique, strategies I highly recommend for all artists, not just documentary filmmakers.

“Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.”

— Gene Fowler

My Advice to Documentary Filmmakers Substack post last week got a ginormous response, so it’s clear that my brilliant, sophisticated, remarkably good-looking readers¹ are clamoring for advice.

And who am I to resist the will of the people?

So, without further ado, here comes some more of it in the form of three great repositories of advice. And not just geared for my fellow doc peeps. They’re intended for any artist who finds themself blocked, or simply looking for some much-needed creative inspiration and reinvigoration.

#1 - Brian Eno’s Obliques Strategies

This past Friday I moderated a Zoom conversation with Gary Hustwit for The D-Word. His wildly innovative film ENO, generatively programed to show a different version each time it screens, was doing a series of livestreams all week. The only time I could feasibly catch one was Thursday afternoon, the day before the session, but my to-do list stretched a mile long and I’d seen it twice already, so I didn’t feel I needed to watch it again to prepare.

However, five minutes before the stream began a funny thing happened. I looked at my keyboard and my index finger started twitching. Then my hand. Then my arm. And what can I say, I just couldn’t help myself.

I HAD to see ENO again!

In last week’s post I wrote that ENO is my favorite doc of recent times. Let me revise that statement. It’s now my top three favorite docs of recent times.

However, as captivated as I was by the technology, I was even more spellbound by Eno’s observations on art and creativity. By way of advice, I’ll focus on one of Eno’s works that comes up in every version of the film, his wondrous Oblique Strategies.

It’s not a song or piece of music. Instead, it takes the form of a deck of printed cards in a black box. Each card offers a challenging, often counter-intuitive constraint intended to help artists break through their blocks by encouraging lateral, outside-the-box thinking.

At some point Eno put up a free digital version of Oblique Strategies on the internet, and I highly recommend you take it for a spin. Just the mere mention of it here sent my arm twitching. And, hard as I tried, I couldn’t resist turning over some cards. Here, I kid not, are the first half dozen cards that came up for me:

How would you have done it?

Into the impossible

Honor thy error as a hidden intention

Overtly resist change

Is it finished?

Do the washing up

I think you get the idea.

In the streamed version I saw, Eno smilingly recalls a time when he and David Bowie each picked a card without telling the other what it said. It turns out they were two diametrically opposite ideas, and yet it led to a breakthrough in finishing a song they were struggling with. It was a good one, too.

So, whether you work with a partner or not, turn over a card and have fun with it. Consider whatever shows up as the universe (and Eno) telling you how to re-think your approach to your art.

As for my online conversation with Gary, inspired by Eno, we got deep into the weeds about art and creativity. And when his wife and ENO producing partner Jessica Edwards joined him on camera, the conversation took an unexpected and considerably more personal turn .

While I’m on the subject, The D-Word has recordings of dozens of online discussions I’ve moderated with special guests in the documentary field over the past five years. We call them D-Words of Wisdom, and it’s like having a free film school at your disposal. You can see all of them on our D-Word YouTube channel.

#2 - Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

This is simply the best, most indispensable book I’ve ever read about the joy and angst of making art. I’ve read it over and over while in the process of making my films, to the point where half the pages are filled with underlines and asterisks.

It’s slim and written in such a way that you don’t need to read the chapters in order; just focus on whatever issue you happen to be struggling with. It’s also relatively inexpensive, so it’s a great gift for the artists in your life. You can buy it here at thriftbooks.

Here’s how they describe it:

“Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn’t get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. The book’s co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world… This is not your typical self-help book. This is a book written by artists, for artists — it’s about what it feels like when artists sit down at their easel or keyboard, in their studio or performance space, trying to do the work they need to do.”

#3 - Creative Resilience /w Erica

My good friend and longtime fellow D-Word co-host Erica Ginsberg literally wrote the book on creative resilience (it’s an essential one, too, right up there with Art and Fear). Then she started a blog about it. And now she’s launched a new Substack newsletter on the subject, and I urge you to subscribe.

Erica blames credits my Getting Personal Substack for inspiring her, but she’s actually the one who inspires me. Over the many years I’ve known her she’s seamlessly juggled demanding full-time jobs with her D-Word duties and artistic pursuits, I honestly don’t know how. I just know that when she writes about balancing what we love making with what makes a living, she’s talking from hard-earned experience.

In her introductory Substack post, she notes:

“Creativity is not all about fun. With increased competition for limited support resources and attention, it also means that more people not only need the skills and talent to make great things, but the psychological skills to navigate any number of obstacles along the way. That’s what I mean by ‘creative resilience.’”

And in one of her old blog posts she could easily be talking about Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies:

“We may face obstacles in making art that seem insurmountable. Yet sometimes those obstacles end up being blessings in disguise, forcing us to be even more creative in figuring out alternative solutions.”

Erica and I have talked about recording a live video conversation about creative resilience for our Substacks, but we’ve both been too busy to follow up. Let’s just say it’s coming soon, and be on the lookout.

On another note, as you might have noticed, I’ve turned on the paid subscriber spigot for Getting Personal, at long last. I’m offering a number of tasty perks, including exclusive bi-monthly Zoom calls. But it’s also a way to show your support and appreciation for all the time and effort it takes to crank out these weekly Substack posts. I won’t deny I love writing them (maybe too much), but, honestly, it’s a fuckload of work!

Ok, that’s all, folks. Once again, I’ve overcome the impossible and finished another post.

All spelling or grammatical errors purely intentional.

Time to do the washing up.

I appreciate any and all comments (as long as they’re complimentary), so…

1. Have I mentioned that I’ve gone to paid subscriptions?