One Way You Might Summon the Muse – A Zwicky Box

It is the morning of my first day back after a week off and the muse is failing to visit. I could update a post I’ve done but feel that’s a bit of a cop out. I will instead talk about a possible solution to that “What do I write” feeling.

What I’ve discovered is the Zwicky box (or morphological box) This is a table that has different categories with different values in each. Below you will see an example (I couldn’t find a particularly interesting one – sorry).

What you can see though is that it is easy to make links between different columns and come up with different ideas.

I have my own personal tweaks to this exact method. Firstly, have a list with different columns as above but program a formula that will only show one value at random from each column next to each other. This is very easy to do in Google Sheets or Excel (I’ll share the spreadsheet with you if and when I finish it).

This should have the ability to bring about interesting connections between things meaning that your brain isn’t going through the well-worn tracks that it normally does. If you are totally uninspired you can always refresh the page and a new number of suggestions will come up.

The question becomes “What columns and values do I put here?”. For this you have a number of options – If like me you are somebody who likes writing lists, why not plug one of those lists into each column then you are drawing from ideas that you are already acquainted with well and have a better chance of writing about at length.

Digging into this method it has a lot of similarity with the Exquisite Corpse game as well as freestyle rap where the rapper draws from random suggestions.

Anyway even if I don’t do this, I’ve still managed to write today and at a pinch you can always write about why you can’t write in a morning.

Have a good day everyone!

Joe

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