Stimulating Creativity (When Words Won't Come)
Topic: Stimulating Creativity
There are a number of things you can do to stimulate creativity. Many of these things I should be doing myself.

1. Read other's poetry and figure out how you would have written the same poem. Be careful with this one since many writers would not appreciate this exercise. You might try offering a suggestion or two of what you came up with. You might try this with a classical artist. I think it would be fun to write a modern version of a Shakespear epic.

2. Try magnetic poetry. If you do not have magnets, take a paragraph out of a book. Use these words found in the paragraph to write. Don't change any or the words either. It doesn't have to be great. Once you're done, see if any of it is salvageable. If so, take what you have and go with it or post as is. If there is something worthwhile hidden in your work, by all means, edit. This is now your own creation, add words, remove words, change the word forms, do whatever it takes to make you happy.

3. Take the same text to see if you can create a poem that summarizes the paragraph. See if you can find a better, more imaginative way of saying the same thing.

4. Read some of the classical authors. Read the work of others on a poetry site. Just read. And don't just read, think about what the author has written. Why did he use the rhyme scheme he used? Why did he break his lines the way he did? Does it make sense? Just because a particular poem or author has been published, doesn't mean that we can't perform and in-depth critique of the work.

5. Take one of your old poems and view it with a critical eye. Try to rewrite it. Put it through a workshop if need be. If it is a poem that you didn't particularly like, figure out why you didn't like it and try to fix that aspect of it.

6. Brainstorm. Take a word or an idea that interests you. Write down everything that comes to mind about the selection. Don't stop until you have developed a good list. Review the list to see if anything is worthwhile. Play with the selections.

7. Take the list you created in your brainstorming session and write sentences or ideas for each of the words in your list. Review what you came up with to see if there is a common theme other than the original.

8. Work with a friend and swap brainstorming ideas. Let them write sentences for your words and you write sentences for their words. This is based loosely on the idea that the grass is always greener...

9. Try another form that you have previously not written. The oriental forms are actually quite a disciplined art, but well worth mastering. For this, you might try one of your brainstormed ideas and see if you can fit it into the haiku or tanka pattern.