Lil' Jon and the Creative Process

Back in kindergarten, I told my mom that, "There aren't enough sheets of manila paper in the whole world for all of my ideas!"  Two important thoughts arise from this: (1) my school was too cheap for construction paper and too far back in time for nice white copy paper, and (2) there are now more than enough pieces of manila paper in the world for my few-and-far-between ideas.

My parents gave me lots of artistic freedom as a kid, whether it was letting me draw on every paper surface, giving me "really good" crafting scissors in early elementary school (with which I cut the same pointer finger open in the same place and got the same stitches twice), and giving me the most advanced electronic publishing tools to be had on a 1987 home PC to create the Bear Facts newsletter (circulation: 2).  I ice skated, danced, tumbled, played piano, sang, made every possible genre of art, blew up multiple experiments, built things, studied things through my Fisher Price microscope, accessorized, theorized, and terrorized.  I was a free, creative, curious spirit, and my parents let nothing stand in my way.

Now, forget drafting new novels, sometimes all I can do is choke out a blog post.  I used to have a whole creative process that made writing, art, studying, and -- fine, still blowing things up -- ritual.  Maybe I've skimped on the ritual?  Maybe I would stop staring idealess at the screen/notebook if I set the mood a little better?

I'd be willing to bet all successful creatives have a ritual for when they do their thing, and that's the root of the problem.  Like, can't you just imagine Lil' Jon back in the 2000s sitting around in his fuzzy socks with a cuppa ginger tea twirling his gold chain absent-mindedly coming up with more lyrics like:

Shortie crunk -- so fresh, so clean;  'Can she f***?' — that question been harassing me.
In the mind, this bitch is fine — I done came to the club about fifty-eleven times.

Or Kendrick Lamar sitting cross-legged in one of the puffy chairs at Starbucks with a Pumpkin Spice Latte scrawling out lyrics to his next career-ending Drake diss track in his moleskin notebook?

Anyway, back to trying to write.