Is your teen stuck creatively or looking for ideas for their next story?

Invite them to stop and refill their creativity well. One way to do that is to memorize something. Encourage them to 1) memorize a poem (maybe something from Shel Silverstein) 2) memorize the dialog from a scene in a movie (e.g. The Princess Bride) 3) memorize a new dance move (e.g. Napoleon Dynamite) 4) memorize a joke. Those are a few simple ideas to help them replenish their creativity well and get unstuck.

I’m pacing my room fighting the urge to scrap everything I’ve worked on for the past two weeks. I hit a self-doubt wall with this project that no one is going to care about. I start up my STPT (Self-Talk Pep-Talk) engine. “This time is going to be different. This time I’ve created something great. Everyone will recognize my genius. You got this, bruh!”

I hurry over to my computer, force myself to sit back down, and close the 12 tabs I have open with Ryan Trahan’s newest video, a Dune cinema review, Dude Dad’s home addition, and whatever else I’ve been pretending to “research.”

I take a deep breath, publish my video, and wait. One hour passes… 0 views. Two hours pass… 0 views. One day passes… 0 views. I crawl under my covers and die.

Okay, so that didn’t happen… this time. But, it has definitely happened to me before. I put my heart and soul into something and nothing happens. Crickets. Then I look at “everyone” else and start to compare myself with them and my negative internal di...