Latest / Story Lovers: Books, Movies, Culture & Great Stories / Stuck in the Middle: How to Love Your Creative Plateau | Story Lovers
Transcript
- You know that specific, heavy silence that fills a room when you realize you’ve stared at the same blank page for three hours? It’s not empty; it’s waiting for you to stop fighting it. Let’s be honest for a second. We have this romanticized idea of creativity as this flowing river, right? Water rushing over rocks, clear and constant. But anyone who has actually sat down to write a novel, paint a canvas, or compose a song knows the truth. Sometimes, the river doesn’t just slow down. It stops. It becomes a swamp. A thick, murky, frustrating standstill where nothing moves and everything feels stuck. I want you to take a deep breath right now. If you are sitting there feeling like you’ve hit a wall, like your muse has gone on vacation and taken the Wi-Fi password with her, I need you to know that you are not broken. You are just in the middle of something. I remember sitting in my old bookstore, surrounded by towers of unsold manuscripts, staring at a review draft that refused to take shape. The air smelled like vanilla and dust, and I felt this tightness in my chest so severe I thought I might actually crack. It wasn’t writer’s block, exactly. It was more like creative paralysis. The kind where you’re afraid that if you pick up the pen, you’ll prove you’ve lost your touch. That the well is dry. But here’s the thing about wells: they go dry because we forget how to listen to the depth. We start digging in the wrong spots, scratching at the surface dirt, expecting water that only comes from patience. So, let’s turn the page on this one. Let’s look at this plateau not as a failure, but as a feature. We live in an era that worships productivity. There are apps for every mood, timers for every task, and influencers who will tell you that consistency is the key to genius. And while discipline has its place, there is a dangerous lie hiding behind that advice. The lie is that creativity should feel easy. That it should always feel like a stream. When it stops, we panic. We assume something is wrong with us. Did I lose my spark? Am I too old for this? Too tired? Too distracted? I hear that fear in the letters I get, and it breaks my heart a little bit. Because creativity is not a linear ascent. It’s a spiral. You come back to the same themes, the same struggles, the same questions, but from a higher vantage point. When you hit a plateau, you aren’t going backward. You are gathering momentum. Think about a pendulum. At the very top of its swing, for just a fraction of a second, it stops. It hangs there, suspended in mid-air. It looks like it’s done. Like it’s finished. But that stillness is necessary. It’s the moment before gravity takes over again. Without that pause, there is no swing. There is no motion. If you could see the physics of it, you wouldn’t hate that stillness. You’d respect it. You’d understand that the energy is building, even if you can’t see it yet. So, when you’re staring at that blank screen, or that empty easel, try to reframe the silence. It’s not emptiness. It’s potential. It’s the universe holding its breath with you. I want to talk about resistance, but not in the way Steven Pressfield writes about it, where it’s this dark, villainous force trying to keep you poor and unhappy. I think resistance is often just our ego getting in the way of our soul. When we hit a plateau, it’s usually because we care too much. We want the next piece to be perfect. We want it to match the work we did six months ago, or last year. We hold ourselves to a standard that changes faster than the seasons. And when the output doesn’t match the expectation, we freeze. We resist moving forward because moving forward means risking imperfection. But here is the secret I’ve learned after twenty years of chasing stories: the messy stuff is where the magic lives. The polished stuff? That’s just decoration. The raw, unpolished, ugly first draft is where the truth hides. I used to burn so many notebooks because I couldn’t bear to see my own clumsiness on the page. Now, I keep them all. They are my map. They show me where I stumbled, where I lied to myself, and where I finally told the truth. If you are stuck, ask yourself what you’re protecting. Are you protecting your image? Your reputation? Or are you protecting yourself from the vulnerability of trying? Let yourself be bad at it. Write the terrible sentence. Paint the crooked line. Sing off-key. The act of doing it badly is infinitely more valuable than the act of not doing it at all. Because once you’ve done it badly, you can fix it. You can’t fix nothing. Sometimes, the best way to break through a wall is to change the room you’re standing in. Literally. If you are a writer who is stuck, put down the pen and pick up a camera. If you are a painter who feels drained, step away from the canvas and try cooking. Last month, I talked about finding peace in photography for veterans, and how shifting mediums can heal the spirit. Well, it works for creatives too. When I feel my words drying up, I start reading poetry instead of writing prose. The rhythm changes. The constraints shift. I stop thinking about plot and start thinking about sound. Or I’ll watch a foreign film I’ve never seen before, just to let someone else’s visual language wash over me. This isn’t procrastination. This is cross-pollination. Ideas travel differently depending on the medium. A story that won’t come out in text might jump out of you in a sketch. A melody that refuses to form in your head might appear while you’re washing dishes. Give your brain a different path to walk. Break the routine. Go for a walk without your phone. Listen to jazz instead of your usual playlist. Read a book by an author who writes in a genre you normally avoid. Surprise your nervous system. Novelty sparks connection. When you feed your brain new inputs, you force it to make new neural pathways. You’re essentially tricking your creativity into waking up by giving it something unexpected to chew on. It’s like feeding a squirrel a nut it hasn’t seen before. Suddenly, it’s alert. Suddenly, it’s interested. Be the interesting nut. Be the strange input. Break the pattern. And if none of that works? If you’ve changed rooms, switched mediums, and tried to surprise your brain, and you’re still stuck? Then do absolutely nothing. No guilt. No shame. Just rest. We are so terrified of wasting time that we fill every spare minute with noise. Podcasts, scrolling, checking emails, cleaning. We treat stillness like a sin. But creativity requires boredom. It requires the white space. In Japanese aesthetics, there’s a concept called 'Ma,' which is the negative space that gives form to the object. The silence between the notes. The gap between the shelves. Without Ma, there is no structure. There is just clutter. When you hit a plateau, you might be suffering from creative clutter. You’ve filled your mind with too many opinions, too many trends, too many expectations. You need to clear the table. Sit on your porch. Watch the clouds. Do not think about your project. Do not think about your career. Just exist. Let your mind wander into the weird places it wants to go. This is where the subconscious does its work. While you’re busy worrying about being blocked, your brain is quietly solving the problem. It’s sorting through the files. It’s making connections you didn’t even know were possible. So trust the nothing. Trust the void. It’s not empty. It’s fertile. And when you’re ready, the urge will return. Not with a bang, but with a whisper. A tiny nudge. A single word. A flash of color. And you’ll be ready to catch it. Before we close, I want to invite you to do a small exercise. It’s simple, but it shifts your perspective. Open your notes app, or grab a scrap of paper, and write a letter to yourself from six months in the future. Imagine you are looking back at this exact moment. You are sitting across from yourself, warm and wise, having already gotten through the plateau. What would you say to the version of you who is struggling right now? Tell yourself that it gets better. Tell yourself that this blockage was necessary for the breakthrough that came later. Remind yourself that you survived the hard parts before, and you will survive this one. This practice anchors you in time. It reminds you that this feeling is temporary. It is a season, not a state of being. Seasons change. Winter always ends. Spring always arrives, even if it’s late, even if it’s muddy. Your creativity is not a switch you can flip. It’s a garden. Some days you plant. Some days you water. And some days, you just wait. And waiting is part of the work. It’s the most important part. So be gentle with yourself today. Put down the pressure. Pick up the wonder. Remember why you started creating in the first place. Was it for the applause? Or was it for the joy of making something out of nothing? Hold onto that joy. It’s still there. It’s been there all along, waiting for you to notice it again. Grab your bookmark, we’re going deep. Not into the work, but into the heart of it. Thank you for letting me into your quiet moments. I’m Kylie Eden, and I’ll be here whenever you need to turn the page. Until next time, keep creating, even if it’s just in your dreams.