Drawing a blank

You sit in front of the computer screen with a mind as clear as a mountain sky in the middle of summer. All those beautiful, creative thoughts have left and you can't write a word, upload an image, draw a relationship. What to do, what to do?

For writers, prompts are a great way to get the brain thinking and the fingers moving.

- Take a book off your shelf and open it to page 27. Choose the first line of the second paragraph and write down the first three to five words. Close the book and finish the sentence. Don't stop writing until a 3-minute alarm (that you set when you started typing) goes off. The new short story has begun

- Choose a color. Make a list. Keep going until that 3-minute alarm jingles. You might have a poem.

If you're a designer, the best tool is your sketch pad. You just can't explore ideas in a three-dimensional world entirely from the flat screen of your hand-held device or your computer.

I know, who does this -- put down the computer? But if you're blocked, what do you have to lose? Psychology Today suggests that you distract yourself by drawing blindly or making your "canvas" dirty so your eye has something to focus on. Role-playing (what if Catherine the Great were working on this project?) and then breathe and get back to why you love this creative work in the first place.