The Science of Getting “Unstuck”
One of my favorite examples of this “action above all” principle is something Jeff Tweedy, the frontman of [rock band] Wilco and a writer, explained about his own process. Like most creatives, he’s felt stuck from time to time. His solution, as he describes it, is to “pour out” the bad ideas as though they’re scum sitting atop a pond of fresh water. When he feels he can’t write or compose, he’ll actively try to write or compose bad songs or sentences, metaphorically pouring out the bad ideas to make way for the good. Sometimes those bad songs and sentences turn out to better than he expects, which is an added bonus, but even when they’re not useful products themselves, they seem to liberate other ideas that sit beneath the surface of these inferior or unoriginal ideas.