4 Ways to Find Writing Inspiration and Finish Your Work

Just a page. Just a paragraph. Just a word.

When you have a case of writer’s block, you’d take anything, any progress to get the creative juices flowing again. But it can seem like the well’s run dry.

Overcoming a creative block is a process. Sometimes the fog suddenly lifts, but more likely you will have to work until the sun shines again. It will take some willpower. Part of that process is understanding what causes writer’s block and the scientific ways it can be improved.

What Is Writer’s Block and Why Is It Happening to Me?

Creative blocks of all kinds are prolonged periods of being unable to create or being deeply unsatisfied with the quality of your creative output.

These difficult periods are usually temporary, often reflect emotional or mental state changes, and are characterised by unhappiness, lack of motivation, and limited creativity. Research by Michael Barrios and Jerome Singer, two Yale University psychologists, showed that writer’s block derives from four mental roots: anxiety/stress, interpersonal frustration, apathy, and anger/disappointment. The logic works out this way:

• Writers blocked by anxiety or stress are usually hampered by self-criticism.
• Writers blocked by interpersonal frustration worry about the comparison with others—good or bad.
• Writers blocked by apathy seem to have truly run out of ideas and are unable to find inspiration.
• Writers blocked by anger or disappointment most often are searching for external motivation or reward.

Now with this understanding, you might be balking at the idea that there is some deep-seated emotional trauma you need to work on or that writers suffering from a creative block must schedule time with a therapist.

It’s not like that at all.

First, writer’s block can pop up during times of change and doesn’t necessarily reflect a profound mental or emotional crisis. Second, further research by Barrios and Singer showed that while mental and emotional states seem to block creativity, creativity unblocks such states. Art itself can be therapy.

So, what can you actually do about writer’s block? It turns out that science and experienced writers have come to the same conclusion:

Focus on creative exercises of all kinds to get your writing mojo back.

Activities to Boost Creativity and Stop Writer’s Block

1 Just write.

Experts agree that one of the best things you can do to unblock your writing is to keep writing, even if it’s painful and terribly boring stuff.

“When one feels writer’s block, it’s good to just keep putting things down on paper—ideas, knowledge, etc.”

—Scott Barry Kaufman, Wired to Create

Maya Angelou said the same:

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

—Maya Angelou

In fact, many professional writers insist on writing No. Matter. What.

2 Try something else creative.

Just because you’re blocked in one creative art doesn’t mean you can’t stimulate your brain with other artistic ventures. Art can serve as a form of therapy, so why not try your hand at something new? Drawing, building, and singing are all easy ways to get inspired. Inc.com has compiled a helpful list of creative outlets for you to try in thirty minutes or less.

Go ahead. Try something. We’ll wait.

“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.”

—Hilary Mantel

3Get moving.

Creative output nearly doubles when you’re walking versus sitting. It’s still not clear whether it’s the increased blood flow that helps or the change of scenery. Nevertheless, physically getting out can help get your mind out of the box.

4 Build your creative confidence.

Increased confidence is particularly helpful for people who are concerned with criticism—their own or other people’s. David Kelley has some helpful thoughts for silencing the critics (or at least turning the volume down) and learning to trust yourself again.

. . .When we track them down and ask them what’s going on, they say something like, “I’m just not the creative type.” But we know that’s not true. If they stick with the process, if they stick with it, they end up doing amazing things. And they surprise themselves at just how innovative they and their teams really are.

—David Kelley

In fact, TED, has a great creativity playlist to wake your inner creative genius and unblock your writing.

Regardless of the cause of your writer’s block, all writers can succeed with some creative development and a dose of determination.

What kind of writing block do you identify with? What techniques help you write more and be more creative?

5 Helpful Tips on How to Collaborate with Engineers

Engineers look at the world differently from non-engineers. They are usually extremely logical, pragmatic, and direct, while the rest of us can be somewhat more whimsical, emotional and aspirational. Unfortunately, when working together, these different perspectives present unique communication challenges that can slow work, deliver sub-optimal results, and weaken company culture if not addressed.

Collaborating effectively with an engineer means learning to communicate like an engineer.

I’m not talking about mastering engineer-speak. What I’m getting at is recognizing how sales, marketing, and support teams communicate differently from engineering teams and adapting your communication style when working with engineers.

Here are some basics for collaborating and communicating productively with engineers.

Tips for Talking to Engineers

1 Build sincere trust.

This should be obvious, but healthy, productive relationships require trust. Day-to-day, you build trust with your immediate team members, you may not realize it. In fact every time you solve a problem together, talk about your weekend together, or achieve a goal together, you are contributing to the trust in your team relationships.

Many times, however, we do not have the same experiences with the engineers we need to work with and don’t have the same protective trust that supports our communication. To this end, it’s helpful to invest a little time getting to know the engineers: ask them how their weekend was, ask them what they’re working on, invite them for coffee. Little, sincere actions every day go a long way to ensure trustful working relationships that have a bit of protection if misunderstandings arise.

2 Include engineers in your brainstorms.

One of the most frustrating situations at work for everyone—including engineers—is when it seems someone is telling you how to do your work. Unfortunately, this happens often with engineers because they are not regularly included in initial brainstorms. What this means is often we come up with solutions that are not realistic or practical from an engineering perspective. We write up specs and set up meetings to pitch our solution to the engineers, only to find out that it won’t work. This approach wastes time and money.

The simple solution is to include engineers from the beginning, ensuring you develop realistic and practical solutions and that you have buy-in from the engineering team. However, it’s not enough just to invite them to the brainstorm and still pitch them your solution. A much better approach is to ask them for their solutions. Tell them the problem you want to solve and see what they come up with.

3Listen.

This tip is straightforward and piggybacks nicely on the previous suggestion.

Here’s a tip: Talk with engineers instead of to them.

Ask questions, stay open-minded, and be ready to discuss options.

4Respect their time.

This is office politeness 101 and goes for everyone. But it’s especially important with engineers who are often working without a project manager or a CTO. These developers usually juggle many projects for different teams, and they alone are responsible for those outcomes. Time is precious. To get the most of your time with an engineer, it’s important that you schedule and prepare for a meeting.

How to Structure a Meeting with an Engineer

• Clarify ownership—make sure you’re talking to the best person to help you.
• Put the meeting on the calendar.
• Send an outline or an agenda in advance.
• Avoid small talk.
• Ask about a solution instead of giving it.
• Discuss options and trade-offs.
• Determine next steps and deadlines.

5 Learn to speak their language.

The workplace today is increasingly diverse. It’s important to understand not just differences in professional expertise but also in culture that may influence your communication choices at work. I’m not suggesting you need to learn another language, but it is helpful to speak the same language on a similar level. There are numerous strategies on how to communicate well across cultures. However, negotiating this layer of communication does not have to be complicated—simply use plain language.

Plain Language Tips

• Avoid jargon, idioms, and complicated phrasing.
• Speak slowly.
• Speak one at a time.
• Stop and check that everyone is on the same page.

When it comes to communicating well with engineers, a lot of the rules that work for just about everyone also work for them. If you spend some time getting to know your engineers, build trust, respect their time with planning, and respect their expertise by asking questions and including them in developing solutions, collaborating with engineers is easy.

Political Correction: How “PC” and “Reclaimed” Words Got Their Start

Any Google News search for “political correctness” will yield three general groups of results: pieces slamming one public figure or another for their lack of politically correct discourse, thinkpieces describing why the “PC police” are ruining free speech, and articles debating whether certain actions or speech patterns are “politically correct.”

While online pundits and thinkpiece authors spend a lot of energy debating whether terms or usages are PC, or condemning certain figures for their use or avoidance of PC language, there aren’t as many discussions about the history of politically correct language. Why do some English speakers distinguish appropriate terms from slurs, insults, and problematic figures of speech? Also, what does it mean when other English speakers say they are “reclaiming” or “reappropriating” a word?

What Is Politically Correct Language?

Let’s start this discussion of political correctness with a working definition of “politically correct” that goes beyond South Park’s “PC Principal.” According to Merriam-Webster’s definition, this means,

agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people.

As we can see from this definition, political correctness begins with a belief in using inclusive language—words and phrases that have not historically been used to demean, belittle, or insult any particular group of people. An English speaker who doesn’t believe in using inclusive language is probably not in favor of political correctness, either.

Although it’s true that inclusive language is more than political correctness, one of the biggest misconceptions about PC language is that it’s a new phenomenon. The Harvard Political Review tracked the history of the phrase “politically correct” and found that the term has been used since the 1700s, although it didn’t take on its current meaning until the 1960s. In the ’60s, political parties in the United States would debate whether actions, policies, and language were “correct,” with procedural, almost clinical connotations. The next usage shift came in the 1990s, when “PC” began to take on negative connotations for some political parties in the U.S., even as it was wholeheartedly adopted by others. Today, “politically correct” can be used in many contexts, from debates that hark back to the political procedure discussions to condemnations of any limitation of speech.

A (Brief) History of Reappropriation

Of course, if a word is deemed politically incorrect by a person or group, then who decides whether or when it’s appropriate to use again? This is where reappropriation and reclamation of language enter the PC landscape. And like political correctness itself, these have a long academic history.

“Reclamation” (or the related term “reappropriation”) has been used in the field of social science since the mid-1960s, often in reference to either tangible assets lost by certain groups (land, natural resources) or cultural customs believed to be lost (traditions, language). Although its official definition varies with use, “reappropriation” involves a group bringing back an idea, custom, or object that had once been used by others in a way the group perceived as negative or hurtful. For example, the term “queer” was reclaimed by some members of the LGBT community in the 1990s, when the former slur started to have new meaning as a sexual or gender identifier.

If you look at the Google Ngram chart below, you’ll notice that the frequency of the word “reclamation” has remained low but steady in printed books since the early 1910s. The more active “reclaim,” however, began rising in popularity in the 1960s, overtaking its academic predecessor in the mid-1990s. Additionally, “problematic,” a term often lobbed at words deemed inappropriate because of their derogatory or prejudiced nature, rose sharply in popularity starting in the 1970s and reaching a peak in the late ’90s.

So, it would seem that as political correctness was gaining new meaning in the 1960s and 1990s, the discussion of reclamation or reappropriation of language was similarly piquing public interest. But what does this history have to do with the state of PC and reclaimed discourse today?

What Is “Reclaiming” a Word?

Although numerous groups have reclaimed words or phrases, here’s what the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network has to say about reclaimed language:

As language evolves, some individuals and communities choose to identify with terms that had previously been used as slurs against them. These words are “reclaimed” and given new meaning, often imbued with a sense of pride and resilience. Examples include “queer,” “dyke,” and “tranny,” among others. It’s important to remember that identity is unique to each individual; not all members of a community readily accept the use of reclaimed words, as they may still find them offensive and hurtful.

This definition, and others like it, exist across multiple groups who are currently working to “reclaim” certain words once deemed offensive or politically incorrect. The examples above are specific to the LGBTQ community, which has reclaimed numerous words over the years. But it maps back to the larger trend outlined by Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word “reclaim”:

to get back (something that was lost or taken away)

But why would you want to “get back” something that was once used to degrade your identity?

According to Tony Thorne, curator of the Slang and New Language archive at Kings College, it’s a simple issue of control. If you control the language, you can control the narrative about your group. As he says, “Reappropriation of ethnic and sexual slurs starts as an act of bravado by a few of the oppressed, then may become an empowering mechanism for a much wider community.” Under this reasoning, reclaiming a potentially negative word like “queer” could help members of the LGBT community feel as though they’ve changed the narrative about sexual or gender identity. It also can allow English to reuse once politically incorrect words as positive watchwords for certain interested people or groups. As GLSEN mentions above, though, people outside these marginalized groups should be careful when using reclaimed words, since they can still be offensive to certain people, even if their definitions and usage are rapidly changing.

English Evolves

However we may personally feel about either political correctness or reclaiming language, there is one fact all English speakers must acknowledge—English evolves. Any grammar pedant who claims a static set of rules for English needs a gentle history lesson; English has always changed and always will.

So, whether the Internet implodes because of the PC debate or not, English speakers will continue to change the rules for accepted terms and usage among certain groups. When you find yourself uncertain about a potentially loaded term, it helps to ask members of certain groups which words they prefer. If that’s not a possibility, it may also help to avoid some new or changing words you aren’t entirely sure how to use.

Of course, not everyone agrees that politically correct language is important. But let me challenge us all to take ten seconds to consider how our words may affect others. Let’s all try harder to make the Internet a more inclusive place. Perhaps we can create a future state of English that allows people to define themselves however they choose, in whatever terms they deem fit. If those terms are accepted by the wider English-speaking public, great! If not, perhaps we should allow previously unheard voices to introduce themselves in their own words.

Finally, to those who dislike political correctness and reclaimed words, let’s talk about it! Leave a comment below to continue the discourse on this language trend.

Not-So-Sweet 16: Email Autonotification Hell vs. Should’ve Messaged

The Not-So-Sweet 16 rages on with this set of obnoxious inbox-stuffers. Which bothers you more, autonotification emails, or emails from coworkers who should have messaged you elsewhere? Honestly, we don’t love either.

Ready to vote to determine the next round of March MADness? We know we are!

Autonotification Email Hell

Autonotifications are sent automatically when someone updates a task, project, or chat. In the best-case scenario, these autonotifications can be batched, but usually your inbox gets swamped by minor updates to various channels. Is it really necessary to know that someone left a chat? Rarely.

When They Should’ve Messaged

If there is an important or time-sensitive issue that the team needs to see, an email-only approach can be a disaster. For these questions, even checking your email twice a day is not enough. You’ll miss the boat. What’s worse is that emails can get pushed down deep into the inbox, making it even more difficult to reply promptly.

How to Date Introverts, From an Introvert

Dear Prospective Dates,

We need to talk. After a string of meh encounters, it’s time to clear the air: I’m a lady introvert*, and the way you’ve been going about courtship just isn’t working. As an introvert, I need a much lower level of mental stimulation to operate than ambiverts or extroverts require. Though everyone is different, you should know that we introverts don’t like “typical” dating approaches. If you want to get to know us, you have to go about things differently, and in return, we’ll be fiercely loyal and communicative partners. This letter is an attempt to outline some tips that will endear you to your introverted love interests. Take heed!

1 Cut the small talk. Cut. It. Out.

Let it be known once and for all that introverts hate small talk. Whether you are using a dating app or you approach us in line at the grocery store (meeting in a bar, are you kidding?), don’t spew cliches. You’ll get a lot further with us if you cut typical “pick-up” strategies. Instead, strike up a conversation on something more personal and relevant. “I love that flavor of Ben & Jerry’s. Have you tried the new flavor?” is far better than “Looks like a wild night. Need company?” Humor is good, but can be off-putting from strangers.

2 Take me somewhere quiet, away from the crowd.

Assuming you’ve landed a date, don’t take me to a busy restaurant or crowded bar. I will notice Every. Little. Thing. I won’t be able to focus. For introverts, getting acquainted with people is a deep investment. From the start, we prioritize the quality of communication. We much prefer to do this in spaces with limited distraction. So, a walk in the park, a visit to a new bookstore, or a calm, cosy cafe are much better options for making your introvert date comfortable from the get-go.

3 Show me your brain.

As I said earlier, getting to know someone is an investment for an introvert. If that investment isn’t reciprocated early on, we’re often left feeling that the interaction is just too shallow and uninteresting. Introverts are less likely to be interested in discussing work or home at length (unless you happen to be a librarian or your home is full of rescue animals). Instead, tell us about something you’re learning or reading. The more you show your inner world, the easier it is for an introvert to feel a connection.

4 Be careful with compliments.

Introverts rarely are comfortable as the center of attention or when they feel they’re being judged—particularly for characteristics that they themselves don’t strongly identify with. For example, you may be tempted to compliment your introverted love interest on looking nice, but it can fall flat if your date doesn’t actually identify with a strong investment in appearance.

Additionally, superficial compliments can signal to an introvert that you pay attention to something that they haven’t developed. As a result, an introvert can become self-conscious. As a rule, introverts (and probably most people) respond best to insightful, concrete compliments on their strengths, e.g., “You have great taste in music. I loved that album you told me about.”

5 Practice patience.

Because our tolerance for mental stimulation is lower than that of other personality types, if we’re unexpectedly caught in a noisy, crowded, or chaotic situation, we can have trouble functioning. It may seem like we are very quiet, zoned out, distracted, or bored. The truth is we want to continue focusing on you, but we’re flooded with details. It can be helpful for all parties to recognize that deep conversation (or, sometimes, all conversation) should be put on hold until the level of stimulation decreases.

On a related note, introverts are likely to avoid substances that heighten stimulation—excess caffeine, sugar, drugs, that really hyper dude in the corner . . . Respect our decision to abstain from additional stimulation.

In sum, we introverts function optimally in low-stimulant environments, value deep interactions over superficial ones, and genuinely don’t appreciate social pressure. In return for making the effort, we’ll be loyal, supportive, and engaged partners.

Kindly,

Your Next Introverted Date

If you’re an introvert or have successfully dated one, what tips would you add?

*These tips are written from the perspective of a heterosexual female. Some of the examples may not be applicable to other perspectives, but the general ideas should still hold.