The fridge is open.
I’m standing in front of it. Kelsey walks into the kitchen.
“Hungry?”
“No,” I close the door. “Just bored.”
This is a lie. I’m not bored. Quite the opposite. I’m blocked and can’t write.
“How’s work?” Kels says. She’s holding an Amazon package.
“Good,” I say. “What’s that?”
“It’s for you.”
“Oh?” I reach across the island. “Gimme, gimme.” It feels light. I open it. “Oh!” I say. “It’s my tank.”
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“What tank?”
Few days before I ordered a model tank, the Tamiya US M41 Walker Bulldog, 1:35 scale. It includes three soldiers, one gunner and two infantrymen. I also ordered modeling supplies: paint and glue, tweezers, clippers, a polishing file.
“It’s a model,” I say, turning the box over.
“Since when do you build models?”
In middle school I lived by a hobby store. It was called Venture Hobbies. I liked it there. It smelled good and everybody was nice. I liked it there.
“I dunno,” I say. I remove the plastic and open the box. “I’m tired of looking at screens all day.”
The baby wakes up and starts crying.
“I got him,” I say.
“It’s ok,” Kels says. “Have fun.”
“Oh,” I smile.
I go upstairs with my new tank and tools. The kit came with instructions, printed on cheap paper, folded like a pamphlet. There are steps and pictures with numbers. Everything is very clear. I turn on music and get to work.
Trey Parker is the co-creator of South Park.
He writes every episode, every week. And part of his creative process is playing with LEGO:
“Sometimes to get my brain working in a different way,” Trey said, “I’ll sit there and put LEGO together. Because you’ve got an instruction book and you just sit there and do exactly what something else tells you to do,” he said. “And it’s just therapeutic.”
Therapeutic in that one of the occupational hazards of creative work is the stress of getting stuck, stuck in a rut: thinking in circles. I felt this way in front of the refrigerator. I felt like I was going in circles.
My door cracks open.
“How’s it going in here?” Kels says.
I look up. It’s late.
“Dang,” I say, “it’s late.” So I go to sleep and wake up early and start writing. I feel good, refreshed. I finish the work before breakfast.
When you’re stuck:
Stop making creative decisions — and instead, start taking creative direction:
Construct a model
Paint by numbers
Build a LEGO set
Do anything where you’re following instructions.
You’ll find it’s a rejuvenating form of Creative Rest.
LEARN TO PERSUADE
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