”You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult
EXPLORE! Take in what you see and what you hear around you. Write down reflections, feelings, thoughts. It can be just few words, phrases or a theme.
DON'T JUDGE! While you are collecting your ideas, don't judge, don't throw them away too soon. It's easy to kill the spark of inspiration. Don't judge your work too fast cause you'll never know what ideas that might grow out of the first little seed of thought. You can always go back and edit, re-write later on!
EXERCISE YOUR MIND! Listen to music, analyze what you hear and what you like. Read lyrics, read poems, read books. Exercise your mind and feed it with inspiration and words.
PRACTICE CREATIVITY! Practice improvisation on your instrument and/or vocal improvisation, give your self limitations for your improvisation, it can be a scale, a few notes, a rhythm. If you sing you can play around with some words or phrases.
PRACTICE WRITING! Set a timer for 5 min and just write whatever comes to mind. It don’t need to be anything, it might not be a final product that you will use. It can be just words on paper, it can be journaling, it can be poems, it can be song lyrics. The important thing is to just write freely and let your mind just spill out onto a paper.
PRACTICE COMPOSING/ PRODUCING MUSIC! Set a timer for 15-20 minutes and compose/produce within that timeframe, create anything that comes to mind. Don't get too caught up in details, focus on chords, beat, melody and mode/vibe. Start with just 4-8 bars of music. You might start something that later on turns into a song.
”Remember, your artist is a child. Find and protect that child. Learning to let yourself create is like learning to walk. The artist child must begin by crawling. Baby steps will follow and there will be falls - yecchy first paintings, beginning films that look unedited home movies, first poems that would shame a greeting card. (...) Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.” Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way)