This is a writing prompt from a couple of days ago in the Worldbuilding Community - the theme is Uninspired.
It's come at the perfect time, I've been completely struggling with a lack of inspiration for the last couple of days.
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
The lack of inspiration mostly just down to mental exhaustion. Real life is being terribly stressful right now and the pressure isn't letting up in the slightest, and that means that when it comes to evening-time, my brain is just full of jelly and won't function like it normally should. The reality is that I probably need a holiday followed by some significant life changes, but that's a lot easier to say than do.
But I hate knowing that there is worldbuilding I need to do, and should want to do, but just can't bring myself to get onto. There's a D&D campaign which needs an epic and glorious finale, but every time I sit down to start writing it my brain just fogs up and the ideas run out of my ears. Then there are two or three Hive posts I'd like to write. Normally I relish it, but I know if I try to do any of them tonight I'd just be "phoning it in" and not do them justice.
So what's the solution ?
Well yeah, a holiday, win the lottery and retire.....
But since that's unlikely (especially as I rarely do the lottery and the odds of winning are marginally lower than the odds of being killed by a meteor strike), I should probably focus on shorter-term solutions.
The first lesson I've learned is not to feel guilty about it. Everyone gets writers' block at some point or another. Feeling guilty just induces more paralysis and makes getting back to it harder. Just accept that it's one of those days and move on.
The second thing I know is... don't force it. If I try to push myself too hard to be creative, I'll just produce rubbish.
Quite often, the best thing is just walk away and come back to it fresh tomorrow. Go for a walk. Watch a film. Read a book. Surf crap on YouTube. Something which distracts the brain, nothing heavy, and just turn the world off for a bit.
The other thing I'll do is start an entirely new project. Even if I do no more than make planning notes that I can come back to later. It won't have all the emotional baggage of something I've tried to make and got bogged down in. Sometimes it'll be something I've been thinking about in the background for a while. Or maybe if I've read a book or watched a film recently it'll be taking an idea from that and transposing it into a different world. The key thing is that it's something completely new and different.
Another interesting source of ideas, which can be applied to either creative writing or worldbuilding for games, is dreams. Perhaps it's just me, but when I'm stressed the dreams I have are often completely surreal. None of this ordinary re-hashes of daily life. No, my stress-dreams are frequently apocalyptic and fantastical, and quite often tell coherent stories. I don't usually even have to make notes; they are the kind of dream that sticks in your brain all through the day.
So yeah... that's how I deal with it when I lack inspiration....