Creative Silos: A Unique Strategy for Your Writer Brain with Cindy Cisneros

Storyteller's Society Sneak Peek: This Creative Silos method can make you way more efficient in your writing practice.

Creativity coach Cindy Cisneros reveals why traditional productivity advice fails creative writers, her game-changing "Silos" method that stops the destructive cycle of switching between writing and querying, and the "cross-modality" technique that breaks through even the most stubborn creative blocks.

What You'll Learn:

• The "Creative Silos" strategy that lets you batch writing and other tasks for maximum flow
• Why waiting for natural motivation beats forcing daily word counts every time
• The real reason creative people need "incubation time" and how to use it strategically

Click here to learn more about Cindy 

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Transcript

Cindy Cisneros: 0:00

So let's talk about some strategies. One of the ones, and this is a tough one, For us as creative people is when we don't feel like doing something. So we're feelers. If you don't feel like doing something and the cursor's blinking and you're not in that zone, this is one of the biggest things. Or maybe it's logistics and you need to be submitting lots of query letters or maybe you need to be making lots of phone calls or whatever it is and if you don't feel like doing it, this is one of the biggest blocks. that we can have as creative people because you've got to feel like doing it. If you feel like doing it, you're going to be the most productive person, the most productive person, but you got to feel like it. So here's a strategy I recommend to people a lot. I recommend, I call it silos, but let me kind of give you an overview of what that looks like. I recommend that you start making these kind of buckets of things. So if you have let's say. Writing, or if you have phone calls, or if you have business planning, or if you have just kind of make categories and chunk stuff off into those categories, and then, Decide if you're going to put these into days or half days or however you're going to assign them and then put your little tasks in the buckets of here's the things that I know I need to do in my financial. Here's the things that I'm working on in my writing plot or chapters or whatever. Here's the things I'm working on with my CRM on my phone calls or whatever they are. And then when you get to the particular day, like for me, all of my networking is on Friday. every week. But I am not beholden to 9 a. m. I am meeting so and so at coffee shop, because as a creative person, I can't, I can't do it. But I know that there's going to be a time on Friday when I feel like networking. And when that happens, I'm going to get all the networking done. So my recommendation to you is, if you kind of have things loosely organized, by task, in lists, assigned to a certain block of time, wait for that moment of eagerness to hit. Because it will. And when it does, do everything. And when it's not there, don't force yourself. Because when you force yourself, you will hate it more. And know that when that inspiration or that eagerness or that moment strikes you, you're, even if it's a half hour or an hour, you're gonna knock out so much of it because that's who you are. And, the time that you're not doing it, as creative people, we use a lot of RAM at once, that time you may need to really be resting. It is hard for us as creative people to be doing nothing. For us, time is precious. That pressure to use all the time is real for creative people, but sometimes doing nothing is important. I call it for creative people, incubation time. Sometimes it's when you're coming up with your best ideas. Sometimes it's when all of your cells are aligning and you're sitting there doing nothing and then You figured out the thing, but it's really important as creative people, every single second doing something is not necessarily in your best interest. As an aside while we're on this topic, I want to talk about getting unstuck. So if you're in a space where, yeah, yeah, I hear you, like when I feel like I'm ready to do something, I'll do it, but I've been stuck on this one thing forever. I hear it. That's real. So, here's a couple of things that I recommend. One that I like for getting unstuck is called cross modality. Sometimes we get stuck because we put too much pressure on the product. So cross modality is pick something that is not writing. And it doesn't matter if you're good at it or if you ever intend to. It's probably better if you don't intend to ever be good at it. So if you're not a painter, put some finger paints out. If you're not a musician, get a ukulele. Just get something that has zero pressure for anything except for playfulness. And you're trying to get that kind of childlike playfulness and playfulness. Back, and to get your wheels to stop turning on the same thing and grinding and grinding away. So, if it's a couple of things, if it's one thing, but we're doing something other than writing that is also creative, and that's cross modality. Also, you've probably done this one, smaller chunks. Smaller. So if we're stuck on certain dialogue for a certain scene, break it down smaller, turn it to something else, Okay, they're not talking about this. They're talking about doing laundry. Just break it down, something smaller, and then your breakthrough can happen. And this is my favorite get unstuck, is go get inspired. Go get inspired. What inspires you? Music inspires me. Museums inspire me. Nature inspires me. What inspires you? Walk away from what you're doing and go get inspired. I'm going to completely change gears now for a different strategy. We talked about the importance of balancing kind of focus and rest and why that's important to you. But I want to talk about one other thing, which is burnout, which is very real for us as creative people because of this hyper focus. But I also want to kind of talk about the reality of creativity in today's world few, if any of us, get to do it full time, solely. And that can be heavy lift, right? Because we're doing this for money, we're doing this for money. If you, if you're doing creative things for money, you're probably also doing several income streams, right? Like you're hosting workshops, and you're writing, and you're doing podcasts, and you're, you know, you're doing several things. And so all of the different things can be fatiguing. So what is something that you can do to help you manage burnout? And one of the things that I like is can, and this is going to sound very therapist y, but hold on one second, is connecting with your why. So connecting with your why is why am I making art? Why am I writing? Well, because I don't know what it's like not to. I can't, I suffer if I don't. Yes. Yes. All of those things. But I coach clients in doing something called the creative purpose statement, and this is something that's in my courses and in my content too, but this is kind of walking you through what does it mean on a larger scale for me? to be making my work. What does it mean on a larger scale for me to be writing? What does it resolve for me as a human? What am I contributing to the world even? What does it mean to my mental emotional health? What does it mean to my community? What does it mean to my legacy? Kind of putting that all together into just like a little statement that you can circle back to and connect with to remind yourself what it's all for. And that feels like a lot but it can be a powerful thing because it's yours, you know? It's yours. So I want to say all of those things. That was a real fast kind of crash course, to encourage you that writing is an important part of who you are. That Mother Nature has designed your brain to be creative and it's healthy for you. Yes, it's hard out there. There are pros and parts of your brain that can make it difficult. But overall, it will make you a stronger, happier, healthier version of yourself to continue to create.

David Gwyn: 7:47

One of the things I thought was so interesting that you talked about was the, the silos, and I think of the people on this call and the people who are in this community are people who, generally speaking, are, you know, querying one book and writing another, and I, I hear from people a lot that they get stuck querying and then feel like they're not writing, and then they get stuck drafting and writing, And they feel like they're behind on queries. And I think that that idea of silos is really important. Because these are kind of like two different parts of our brain that we're, that we're using, you know, querying is very much more like applying for a job and writing is obviously this like kind of creative piece. Are these things that you would suggest. Doing like, in, back to back? Or are these something you'd say, like, Hey, I think you should query on Mondays, and then write on, the other days of the week? Have you found a kind of way that works best for creative people?

Cindy Cisneros: 8:37

Creative people tend to hyper focus, right? So yes, generally speaking, we're going to want to pick one task and immerse. And distractions tend not to be great. So if you, let's say you have creativity planned for today. Today is a writing day. Your brain might naturally look for some way to escape. that difficult task because the creative task is generally the more difficult task and say, well, I'm going to check my emails. I'm going to check my database to see if any of my queries have been looked at. I'm going to this, I'm going to that, I'm going to this. So if you put boundaries around that, no, today is a writing day. Query day is tomorrow. Then you're kind of protecting that and creating the space to let yourself write. And not kind of let your brain have the out to do some more of the like, and I don't, I don't mean mindless, like it doesn't take brain power, but it's just a different, like you said, part of your brain that is looking for, oh, well, I don't, I can do this instead, you know, and then progress doesn't move in the same kind of way. So yeah, I think the, the boundary between them is, is helpful.

David Gwyn: 9:43

No, that, that makes a lot of sense.

Cindy Cisneros: 9:44

And I want to leave you with some resources to make it easier. I want to give you just a little blurb as to what those are.

David Gwyn: 9:53

Yeah. If you want to give an overview, that'd be great.

Cindy Cisneros: 9:55

Okay, so I have something called the creativity courses that I wanted to leave you guys with, and so I came to this point, this is another one of my little soap boxes when I got out of art school and when I got out of counseling and everything because it's the same there, there are no courses on business. There is nothing to help artists, to help writers, to help therapists know how to run a business. And that didn't sit right. That did not sit right because what there is a ton of is scams, and bad information, and greediness, and ways for us to lose our money. So, writer beware is kind of our best, like, you know, saving grace out there. So, what I, what I've put together is a free, suite of courses for creative people to help you understand planning, marketing, and selling, not just for an entrepreneur, but for a creative entrepreneur. Because even if you do decide, let's say, to publish with a publisher and not self publish, you are going to likely end up doing your own marketing, a lot of your own promoting. And so it's important to kind of be savvy and know what these basics are. And so, All of this is out there with video content, worksheets, downloadables, written courses to kind of help you get those basic sea legs of how to do business as a creative person. There's a little community for you guys that are connected to it to help you connect with each other, ask each other questions, and if it's scary, if it's overwhelming, it doesn't have to be, and I've really tried to break it down in a manageable, supportive, safe yeah, Kind of space.

David Gwyn: 11:35

Cindy, thank you so much. I'll link to that stuff. So everyone has, has quick access. This was really great. Thank you. I really can't thank you enough. I feel like I, I feel like I know myself better.

Cindy Cisneros: 11:44

Good. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, of course.