Force your creativity

“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” — Ray Bradbury

A new study has shown that forcing ourselves to write every day creates results.

A study by Robert Boice, reported in his book, Professors as Writers: provides concrete evidence for two concepts: 1) writing daily produces more writing and more ideas and 2) writing accountability works.

To find out if daily writing and accountability could be effective, Robert Boice conducted a test with 27 faculty members who need help with improving their writing productivity. He put the 27 people into three groups and then set up an experiment to measure their writing productivity for ten weeks.

Group 1: Write only if they had to write, but asked to keep a log of creative ideas for writing. The idea behind this group was that planned abstinence would lead to the production of creative ideas for writing when the time came.

Group 2: Scheduled writing sessions five days a week for ten weeks, but was encouraged to write only when they were ‘in the mood’. They also were asked to take the time they had scheduled for writing to log a new creative idea for writing each day. The idea behind this group was that writing only when they were in the mood would boost creativity.

Group 3: Had to commit to an accountability plan. They scheduled five writing sessions a week for ten weeks, and kept a log of creative ideas for writing. To ensure that they would write every day, the members of this group gave Boice a pre-paid cheque for $25, made out to a hated organization. If they failed to write in any of their planned sessions, Boice would mail the check. The idea behind this group was that forced writing would require the group to come up with creative ideas for writing.

Boice’s study revealed:

• Abstinent writers produced an average of 0.2 pages per day, and only one idea per week.
• Spontaneous writers produced an average of 0.9 pages per day, and one creative idea every two days.
• Forced writers produced an average of 3.2 pages and one creative idea each day.

These results show that, contrary to what one might think, creativity can be forced. Sitting down and making yourself write every day is a great way to make those creative juices flow.

Buy yourself an egg timer or use a stop watchonline: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/

Set the stop watch to countdown for 10 minutes.

Now choose anything/something/a theme to write about. If you’re struggling, here are some suggestions:

• A firstdate.
• A coastal walk
• A relationship break-up.
• The first day at school.
• A drunken man in the cemetery.
• A message in a bottle.
• The wrong boots.
• Bad hair day.
• The burning Bible.

Choose one subject and then write without stopping for 10 minutes. Don’t stop to edit or think, just write.

Once you’ve finished – count up the words that you’ve written. How many did you write? Don’t judge or read back the writing yet. We’re just trying to establish how many words you can write in 10 minutes.