Repetitive Thinking and Creative Block

Having just read my last two blog posts I realise that I have been repeating myself - what I thought was a new thought or revelation, I had actually already articulated in a blog post a month or so earlier. Should I be worried about this? Or is it just the way the human mind works: visiting and revisiting a problem until it is solved or at least explained?

For writers (and probably other types of creative) artistic block can be a major issue. For me writer's block is something that crops up again and again. I have got more used to it now though. It is like a tiresome old friend that turns up from time to time expecting a meal and a bed for the night and then stays for days until his welcome is well and truly worn out. I don't greet it with the blind panic I used to waste on it when I was a newer writer. I know that if I do the things that keep me inspired and unblocked - morning pages, artists dates, looking at art, reading poetry - then I will get inspired again at some point. It is when I neglect to do these things that my mind becomes all silted up and I can't even begin to think about writing. There are other things that impinge on my creativity too - too much teaching (I suspect that teaching - or at least the preparation - uses the same creative part of the brain as writing), reading too many novels, stress, noisy neighbours and watching too much TV are all things that seems to affect my ability to write.