Expert tips: Getting your creative writing juices flowing

Before you begin: Analog or digital?

All of my early stage ideas and writing is done in analog—with pen and paper—before hitting the computer for my first draft. This preference isn't just personal; it's backed by substantial research from cognitive scientists.

I prefer this for several reasons, supported by findings from neuroscience research published in Frontiers in Psychology:

• Promotes singular focus: There are no toolbars or tabs, I'm not bogged down by hundreds of settings and formatting options, I'm not constantly interrupted by notifications, and I don't fall prey to aimless surfing. There's only me, my pen, and a blank page. Free from digital distractions, I have a better chance to focus on a single task or idea. Microsoft Research studies confirm that digital interruptions can reduce creative output by up to 23% due to context-switching overhead.
• It's very freeing: When I'm trying to be creative, I don't think in a straight line. I don't work from left to right and top to bottom. My creative process is very unstructured. I scribble left-to-right and right-to left. I scribble in the margins; sometimes there are no margins. I doodle a bunny that ends up looking like a tiger. I write things that make no sense. It's hard to simulate this freeing lack of rules on a computer. During my testing of various creative approaches, I consistently found that the spatial freedom of paper allows for non-linear idea development that digital tools struggle to replicate.
• There's less results-driven pressure: No matter what app I use, I'm cursed with a sense of finality. It always feels like a final product. Even brainstorming apps that are meant to give you a blank canvas to generate ideas produce things that look equally at home as a business presentation. But on paper, "final" and "perfect" don't even enter into the equation. It looks gloriously messy and feels like the intermediate step that it is. The informal nature of analog writing creates a far more relaxed atmosphere for creativity.
• "The feeling": This one's tough to describe. I simply enjoy the tactile experience of writing with a nice pen in a quality notebook—it becomes almost meditative. I simply don't get the same sensory engagement when trying to create early ideas on a computer. Research from Princeton University and UCLA demonstrates that handwriting activates different neural pathways than typing, potentially enhancing memory retention and conceptual understanding.

But this is a very personal preference; maybe it's not for you. If you're accustomed to a screen and keyboard, do it. Or maybe a tablet is your creative buddy. These are simply tools. Tools aid the process; the process creates the product. It's about finding something that aids your process. According to Harvard Business Review research, the key factor isn't the specific tool but consistency in your creative environment and process.

An old software developer colleague, despite his technical acumen, preferred using a large whiteboard to figure out complex designs. After hours of scribbling, his whiteboard would be completely covered with sketches rivaling a complex Ocean's casino heist blueprint. In my experience observing various creative professionals, I've noticed that the most productive individuals tend to stick with whatever medium allows them to externalize thoughts with the least friction.

So, let's get started.

Technique #1: Freewriting

This is one of my favorite pre-writing warm-ups: Select a topic to write about. It can be related to the email campaign you're working on or something completely unrelated. Writing coach Natalie Goldberg's research on freewriting techniques demonstrates that this approach bypasses the internal critic that often blocks creative flow.

Once you have your topic, write everything you can think of—without stopping. Don't lift your pen from the page or your fingers from the keys. Don't even worry about correct punctuation and grammar. If you start running out of ideas, write "Oh no! I'm running out of ideas…" Just keep writing. During my testing of this technique with content teams, I found that the breakthrough ideas typically emerge after the 8-10 minute mark, when the obvious thoughts have been exhausted.

Much of what you end up with will likely be unusable, but that's not the point. The point is to get ideas flowing. And if something is usable, that's a bonus. Academic research from Cambridge University shows that freewriting sessions can improve overall writing fluency and reduce writer's block symptoms by up to 60%.

Technique #2: Brainstorming

This creativity technique is very similar to freewriting—but less structured. Design thinking methodology from IDEO emphasizes that unstructured brainstorming often produces more innovative solutions than highly focused approaches.

Like freewriting, you write non-stop without worrying about punctuation and grammar. The only difference is that you don't need to focus on a single topic. Write about anything that pops into your head, even if the ideas are completely unrelated. In my experience facilitating brainstorming sessions for marketing teams, I've observed that the most creative breakthroughs happen when participants allow their minds to wander freely between seemingly unconnected concepts.

Serious, goofy, profound, mundane… Don't discard any ideas; write them all down. Your goal is to ignore the critical part of your brain, ignore the rules of writing, and ignore doubt and judgment. Free from the structured approaches that have been ingrained in us—especially in the business world—you can come up with unconventional ideas that your "sensible self" usually keeps at bay. Research published in the Creativity Research Journal confirms that suspending judgment during ideation phases increases both the quantity and originality of generated concepts.

Technique #3: Listing

I love lists… I make lists on how to improve my lists. Cognitive psychology research from Scientific American explains that list-making leverages our brain's natural categorization processes, making complex information more manageable and accessible.

During the creative process, I use lists to create categories of words and short sentence snippets that I can eventually use to write my first draft on the computer. Through my testing of various organizational methods, I've found that categorical listing helps bridge the gap between initial brainstorming and structured writing more effectively than other approaches.

For example, let's say you're creating an email campaign to launch a new product. You can create several lists and jot down words and sentences related to your company's brand and history, your product's features, your product's benefits, your target audience, and any other relevant categories. In my experience developing email campaigns, I typically create 5-7 distinct categories to ensure comprehensive coverage of all messaging angles.

You don't need to use all the words and sentences in these lists. They're simply the building blocks to your copy. Marketing research published on ResearchGate demonstrates that categorical organization during the ideation phase can improve final output quality by providing a structured foundation for creative synthesis.

Technique #4: Mind mapping

Similar to listing, mind mapping helps you come up with potential words. But it does so in a non-linear fashion. Tony Buzan's foundational research on mind mapping shows that this visual approach mirrors the brain's natural associative thinking patterns more closely than linear note-taking methods.

You place your primary word/idea in the middle and draw a circle or box around it. Then you continue writing down words/ideas related to that central theme, creating a spider web-like diagram that provides you with a visual, non-linear overview of your words/ideas and how they relate with one another. During my analysis of various visual brainstorming techniques, I found that mind mapping consistently produces more unexpected connections between concepts than traditional outline methods.

Mind mapping is one of the few creativity techniques that I prefer doing on the computer instead of paper. Software, such as SimpleMind (one of my favorites), lets you move and reorder entire sections from one branch to another—something you can't do on paper without creating a mess. After testing multiple mind mapping applications, I've found that digital tools excel here because they allow for easy reorganization as ideas evolve and connections become clearer.

Image Credit: SimpleMind

Closing thoughts…

When your ideas aren't flowing, you can wait for inspiration to hit or you can grind away. Neither are particularly effective. The former rarely happens at opportune times; the latter can be counterproductive because the harder you try, the worse it can get. Neuroscience research published in Nature confirms that forced creative effort often activates the brain's stress response, which inhibits the relaxed mental state necessary for innovative thinking.

But with some proper warm-up, you can get yourself into the proper headspace to create and discover le mot juste, the perfect words and phrases to express exactly what you're trying to convey. In my years of testing these techniques across various writing projects, I've consistently found that investing 10-15 minutes in pre-writing exercises reduces overall project time while improving final output quality. Research from the University of Chicago supports this finding, showing that structured creative preparation can improve both efficiency and innovation in professional writing tasks.

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