I love writing, but self-consciousness is what made me fail composition with incomplete papers on my first try. It’s tough for me, too. I’m afraid that I can’t help you there, but I feel ya.

As for staying creative, I heard someone say that we are most creative when we create. He had taken up painting to help him with his creative skills. It doesn’t have to be painting, though. It could be anything. Music, for example. Just a thought.

Also, when I need to really clear my mind, I visit nature, or a botanical garden. I might go to a conservation area, walk off the trail a little ways, and sit down in a spot that touches me as beautiful or enchanting. I take it all in. The sounds, the smells, the sights. Even the details in a leaf or lichen-covered rock. I’ll run my fingers across it, pay attention to the sound it makes, and enjoy the feel of something not at all made by humans. I think about how it’s such a small part in such a bigger picture, and has probably gone unnoticed by others. But there it is, part of that bigger picture just the same, now gaining for once, at least, someone’s attention and admiration. Maybe it never will again. Nevertheless, it still remains, playing a part for something, even if that something is only for that which lives on and under it. Some of my best ideas come while I’m there in that spot or afterwards. Walking out of the conservation area is like waking up from a much-needed nap for me.