The Ink Splat is our monthly activity letter filled with inspiration sparking challenges and resources guaranteed to inspire your creativity. In this Ink Splat, the author spotlighted is Naomi Kinsman and her book Brilliant Hues. Submit a response to a challenge and you may have a chance to be published online! What are you waiting for?
The Challenge: Unblocked
Write a letter to a friend about what they should do if they get blocked. If you don’t want to write to a real friend, you can make up a situation, too. If you do write to a real friend, send the letter. Or write a letter to yourself about how to get through a block you’re facing. If you want to share your ideas, submit them here.
Check out a few featured responses!
Dear Ava,
I heard you’re feeling blocked. You know that ugly feeling when you just can’t write anymore? Well, I get that feeling a lot! This is what I do.
Strategy One: I think of something funny enough to get my spirit up and keep on writing.
Strategy Two: I stop and read it over and imagine the story like it was a movie. And when it stops, think: What would I like next in that movie?
Strategy Three: Share it with a friend and ask, “What would you think is an interesting ending?” Then, take the idea and change it a little.
That’s how I do it.
Sincerely, Lola
Dear Joe,
You can draw happy things or sad things or slightly scary things. That’s what you can draw when you get stuck.
From, Roxy
Dear Kevin,
You told me you were blocked. How unfortunate! Well, here are my top five ways to get unblocked.
Make three things and incorporate them in the scene.
Think of three scenes that could come next and choose your favorite.
What is the problem? Try doing something that doesn’t relate to that AT ALL.
Go read the beginning of your favorite book.
Leave. Return after doing something else.
I hope you get unblocked!
Best regards,
Lauren
To David,
How about a story that has something to do with something you like to do?
From Luca
Have you gotten blocked? Need help? You have come to the right person! When I get blocked I brain storm and wright my ideas down and then pick one. And thats how I get unblocked.
From Ireland
Submit your response HERE!
As founder of Society of Young Inklings, Naomi Kinsman especially loves to talk with young readers and writers about writing and the creative process. Now that all four books in her new series, the From Sadie’s Sketchbook books are out on the shelves, she has been visiting schools to give presentations and has been inspired by the energy and ideas of the young people with whom she has talked. In particular, Naomi has enjoyed hearing ideas about how students blast through the blocked feeling that often arises at some point in the creative process.
The four books in the From Sadie’s Sketchbook series feature Sadie Douglas, who moves from Menlo Park to a small town in Michigan, and spends an adventurous seventh grade year living in a log cabin, learning about black bears and life in the forest, learning to draw and see as an artist, and gathering many new friends along the way. In the fourth book of the series, Brilliant Hues, Sadie moves back home to California and finds that life is much different than it was when she left. Despite her new challenges and unexpected danger, Sadie is her ever-optimistic self and carves out her own unique place in her community.
INTERVIEW WITH NAOMI KINSMAN:
- How do you find the subjects for your books?
I’ve found (the hard way, of course) that I have to be really interested in something to feel passionate about writing about it. A subject, or a person, needs to be edgy, difficult, political, artist, and/or controversial to make my socks roll up and down. It’s not the kind of search I can do intentionally. I have to come at it sort-of sideways, and a couple things will come together that make me suddenly jump at something.
You wrote the four Sadie books quickly, and now they’re all finished. How does that feel?
While I was writing the books, I had a busy couple of years and a deadline always loomed. Of course, having a deadline is stressful, but it was also a fun challenge to push myself and keep writing. Sometimes when you don’t have to write and you hit a hard part, you stop or slow down, and that’s not always the best thing to do when you’re working on a creative project.
When you go to schools, you talk about the creative process and overcoming blocks when you discuss the Sadie books. Why is that?
Writing the four Sadie books was a huge lesson for me in the creative process. Since I didn’t have the luxury of stopping when I hit blocks, I had to learn how to blast through them. Now, whenever I face an obstacle, I know there’s a way around it, because I learned that lesson first-hand. I enjoy talking about what I learned about blasting through blocks because I know no one likes to feel blocked and we all experience the feeling sometimes. To me, it’s a very hopeful thing to know there’s always a creative way around the block. Instead of focusing on the blocked feeling, I can focus my energy on coming up with a solution, which is much more productive, and a lot more fun.
So, how does one overcome a block?
To overcome a block, you have to understand the real problem. Usually, the real problem isn’t the story, it’s the way the writer is approaching the story. And to figure out what isn’t working in that approach, I think writers need to understand their basic creative personality. There are four main creative personalities, in my opinion. They are:
The Architect: This personality LOVES to plan. Before they write a word of their story, they have diagrams and outlines and detailed plans. Then, as they write, they follow their plan. If they have to deviate from the plan, they will often stop writing and re-plan to make sure they’ve got all their bases covered. The problems for architects come when their plans aren’t working. Sometimes they need a little spontaneous discovery in order to not spin their wheels trying to fix every possible problem.
The Gamester: This personality plays with ideas. They brainstorm and free-associate and try every possible angle. They play to create a plan and then play with the plan once they’ve created it. They play as they draft. Although they have a lot of fun while they work, sometimes the sheer volume of possibilities and options stops them in their tracks. Or they might just keep playing and playing and never follow an idea through.
The Hiker: This personality treats her writing as though it is a step-by-step adventure. Normally, the hiker doesn’t like to plan out the course. Instead, they step out on the trail and take things as they come. If something becomes a problem, the hiker tends to fix it before going on. For hikers, the biggest problems are not having an idea of where they’re headed, and sometimes hiking off in the wrong direction, or getting stuck in a boggy place and working and reworking, only to find that scene might not have even been needed in the first place.
The Dreamer: This personality follows his whim. An idea might appear out of the blue, and he will develop it as long as it appeals to him and then he’ll flit off to another idea. He may or may not finish his story, and he won’t write unless inspiration strikes. For dreamers, the biggest difficulty is that inspiration doesn’t always strike, and often the hard parts of writing cause interest to fade away.
So, once you see more clearly how you’re approaching your story, you might see why the block has popped up. Knowing your personality allows you to create a solution that fits your style. Maybe you’re a hiker, so you’re not great at planning. But maybe there’s a plan that you can make that looks more like a map, with possible choices. It might not be as tight of a plan as an Architect would make, but it will provide the lay of the land for you. Or maybe you’re a Gamester flooded with ideas. Perhaps you need to make choosing what to keep and what to toss out into a game.
The idea is to find a solution that will truly work for you. What works for another person might not ever work for you, and that’s okay.
Are you writing something now? Have you had any blocks? What did you do about them?
I am working on a book I started a long time ago, one that has been full of tricky blocks. I am a Gamester, so I’ve had fun playing with the book, but the thing that I needed to do to really get into motion was to make some specific decisions and follow through on them. First, I made my planning process playful by sketching my plans in pictures and labeling everything with colored pencils or pens, and decided on the scenes I needed in the story. I left room in my plan for scenes that might pop up, but I know the basics that my story absolutely needs. Then, I have been using that loose plan and letting myself really play when I write the scenes. I might change the setting or the characters included in the scene, or the weather, or add in an unexpected event, allowing those fun ideas to play on the page. Then, when I go back and revise, I’ve been taking out what doesn’t fit and keeping what does. I find when I allow those sudden inspirations to pop up in my story as I write, I don’t block the creative flow and it’s much easier for me to get a draft out. With a draft, then, I can go back to playing. For me, shaping the story through revision is a really playful process––that’s the fun part.
Thank you, Naomi Kinsman!
To learn more or to purchase Naomi’s books, visit her website: www.naomikinsman.com
