A few years ago, I took up the practice of bad art and found it has helped me with my writing.
I started doing peculiar arts-and-craftsy things, as whim dictated, without bothering to learn how to do it "right" or laboring over it to make it good. The results are far from show-pieces. They're typically odd or half-baked, fall into the "interesting-idea-but-poor-execution" category. The homemade, old-hippie kind of thing.
Projects so far have included: painting swamp grass on the gas tank, painting the Buddhist Eyes of God across the width of the woodshed, beading a four-foot leaf as an outdoor flag, a couple of mosaic tables, etc. Currently I'm beading a three-foot long fish which I'm planning to hang over a hall window. If you looked at the number of beads involved in a three-foot fish, you might wonder if I have enough to do.
Indeed I do have enough to do, and slapping together my little projects helps me do my work better. The handwork seems to loosen my brain a bit. I can think without focusing on what I'm thinking about. Ideas float up. The range of possibilities seems wider. Also, beads and paint are physical; and that's a refreshing, delicious change from the mental play of writing.
Maybe one of these days, I'll be so bold as to post a photo of one of these projects. We live in a log house on a dirt road through deep woods, in a county dotted with other artists-in-hiding. So the adornments do sorta fit. In the meantime, I'd be interested in hearing about any cross-training ideas of yours, any activities that are fun and at the same time improve your game.
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I think what you're describing is exactly what Jung meant with his quote about hands solving puzzles the mind cannot.
Many years ago I had an old cigar box where I kept words I'd meticulously cut out of newspapers and magazines, along with scissors and glue. When stressed or stuck in writing I would get the box out and do what I called "paste-up poems." I'd use cardboard or tag board or heavy paper and spend an hour or so "pasting up" a new poem. It had a very different quality to it than writing or typing does - there was the cutting and pasting, but also the sliding around of the little paper pieces before committing them with glue. Very therapeutic as well as a path to something exciting. (and if I'd had the foresight to put those words on little magnets and sell them, I'd be a wealthy woman today...:)
These days I am doing body work rather than hand work - learning dressage. It clears my head, relaxes my body, and forces me to focus on very specific tasks that have to do with two minds and bodies working together. My partner in this zen work is Keil Bay, a huge Hanoverian gelding who knows far more than I do but pretty cheerfully (and always gallantly) carries me along the circle.
It absolutely leads to an opening up of the creative mind.
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