Saturday, March 6, 2010

Creative Block

We've all had our share of creative blocks and it's quite the hassle when you're on a strict timeline. Sad to say, I've had a rather major one last night which stretched out to around 3 pm this afternoon, that after giving up on the possibility of an all-nighter even if I went to bed at around 4 am. I was working on a mock campaign for a famous brand of flipflops (as you may gather from the post before this) on hours on end when I hit a creative block. But, I have to admit that my creative block turned out to be fortunate, at least for me and Emily who've had enjoyed a lot of my unblocking activities.

I came across this article (via Lifehacker) where several creatives have shared their ways of overcoming creative block and, after having had read through the whole thing, I couldn't believe that I share the same tactic as one of them.

Minutes after I hit a brain fart, I turned on my speakers full blast with pop screaming at my ears at no end. Lulled me to sleep for the better part of it so it wasn't really that much help. This morning, however, I wrestled with the laptop again to come up with the awesomest mock campaign ever. But, sleepy mornings always have their way so I stood up and mindlessly ambled towards the fridge. It was then when I caught myself preparing for yet another episode of experimental cooking.

Again, the first target was the box of strawberries that filled Emily's fridge. I just couldn't get my mind out of why she purchased such a huge stash but never have the time or energy to prepare them according to her liking? I'm off to the rescue then! So for breakfast, we had strawberry pancakes, thanks to the left-over pancake mix from last time's cookfest.

I went back to my laptop soon after but was still stumped. That meant cheesy marble potatoes! But, with all those in my belly, I knew there's no way I'm not doing dessert. Being the desperate person that I am, I hit the fridge once more only to find apples and, uhm, more strawberries. Oh, and beer! And what's an experimental cook going to do with those? Try to whip something out of all of those, of course!

And, whip something I did, though I have no idea what that something would look like, let alone be named like because Supercook was of no use to me that time. But, lo and behold, I managed to come up with a dish that delighted Emily for the most part (and filled her room with a pungent smell of Red Horse beer). Topping it off with vanilla ice cream buried in the inner crags of Emily's fridge, I was able to come up with ala mode! Whoever said that beer and ice cream does not go together must not have discovered this gem of a dish!

Who's saying I have creative block now? I think, for the most part, we never really do run out of creativity. We never exhaust our capacity to be creative. It's just that when we do try to focus it on only one thing for long periods of time, we level the task down to routine and, well, we all know what happens next. So, what do you do? Simple. Break the routine and you'll be back to doing awesome tasks in no time!

Speaking of awesome, I shall post photos and recipes of my newly-discovered dessert within the week so stay tuned!

Photo Credits:
[.] Buildingblock.eu

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