How WalkJog Used The Creative Sprint To Overcome Writer's Block and Finish Lyrics For Their Next EP

I hadn’t seen Keith Fernandez in almost two years when I found out we were both going to a Dodgers game for a mutual friend’s birthday. Admittedly, I felt apprehensive about hanging out with old college friends again.

Typically, I’m a pretty social person, but my small talk muscles got soft in 2020. I had more “lost-at sea” kinds of deep conversations with close friends, and fewer “feet-in-the-pool” shallow kinds of conversations.

I could tell from the moment Keith arrived that he likely had a similar experience during quarantine. He started off slow, commenting on the game and cracking a few jokes at the birthday boy’s expense. The arresting, “so how have you been” question was nowhere to be found. After a few hours and beers in the sun, I was having a genuinely enjoyable time, despite my apprehension.

Baseball games are only getting longer, so eventually I broached the inevitable.

“Tell me more about your band,” I prodded Keith. There’s a strange chest-puffing tone that can find its way into creative conversations in LA. Keith wasn’t like that at all.

WalkJog, Keith’s pop-rock band he co-founded with wife and collaborator Em Fernandez, had just released their second single, and was in the process of creating their first EP. He was honest about the hard work that independent musicians like them put in to write, record, mix, master, market–all out of pocket. During this conversation, he reminded me of a conversation we’d had over Instagram DM a few months before. He asked If I would write about WalkJog on this blog, but since I mostly focus on self-development, I couldn’t see natural integration.

Then I remembered The Creative Sprint. I knew The Creative Sprint would be able to work wonders for Keith, and I wanted to get him to try it. But I decided to ask a few questions before I went all “self-development-blogger” on him.

“I just end up mulling over a certain little detail that doesn't require that much energy or time from me.”

“I get in this spot where I'm not happy with any choice that I'm making.” This is how Keith explained the creative blocks he encounters when writing lyrics in our follow up conversation. He’ll get hung up on one word, or one idea, and not be able to move past it. Even after a shot of creative inspiration, his momentum stalled because of a word or phrase that didn’t feel right.

Starting isn’t difficult for Keith. It’s continuing.

“Sitting down and writing music is not his problem” said Em Fernandez, the other half of WalkJog (and of Keith). “He’s all heart. He's very creative and artistic–all about the feeling. But if something trips him up, he'll get stuck there for a long time if it doesn't feel right.”

At the baseball game, Keith told me more about the trouble he has with the lyric-writing process. He has no trouble composing guitar and bass parts, or the atmospheric layers that drench their pop-rock tunes. But the lyrics are the hardest part. It wasn’t uncommon for Keith to use studio time, which he pays for, to finish writing lyrics with his producer minutes before laying them down.

“Why am I paying for studio time to just sit and finish my lyrics? I could be doing this before I go in.”

The conversation at the Dodger game wasn’t an official interview, so Keith parked his songwriting woes, and asked me what I was working on. By this point, I saw an opportunity not only to interview Keith for an article, but to really help him crack the code to his own consistent creativity.

A few days before the game, I passed a milestone with my own work. I had successfully written and published 300 blog posts in 300 days. Previously, I was notorious for starting new creative practices, and then breaking them days later. I have recorded the first two episodes of three different podcasts, and built landing pages for four different internet businesses, none of which were ever published.

But when I found the Creative Sprint, I was able to stomp my procrastination, build solid habits, and experience the benefits of consistent creativity.

I told Keith about the philosophy behind the Creative Sprint. I explained that when we commit to undefined creative acts for an indefinite period of time, the only logical conclusion is to quit. Committing to anything new indefinitely is an avenue to exasperation.

This is a familiar storyline for so many creative people I talk to. After a stroke of inspiration, we decide that we will create every day. So we create for five, or six, or seven days. Then, inevitably, difficulties arise. We’re hit with an especially busy day, or writer’s block finally strikes, or we run out of materials. Since we committed to our practice for an indefinite amount of time, and we haven’t been working long enough to experience any benefits yet, our brains begin to believe that we just signed up for a lifetime of difficulty. So we quit.

But the Creative Sprint is all about constraints, and committing to something specific for a short period of time. The new storyline creators experience with the Creative Sprint goes like this: After a stroke of inspiration, and a time of consideration, we commit to a specific creative practice for a finite period of time. So we create for five, or six, or seven days. Then, inevitably, difficulties arise. We’re hit with an especially busy day, or writer's block finally strikes, or we run out of materials. But since we know our commitment to this practice isn’t going to last forever, we’re able to muster up the grit to follow through with our commitment. The sacrifices needed to accomplish the sprint are justifiable, because we know that this difficulty won’t last forever. Then, once the finite period of time ends, we’re able to reconsider whether or not the sprint was worth it. We can see all the benefits in hindsight, and make a more educated, objective decision about whether or not this is something we want to do.

Keith asked if I could send him the Creative Sprint. So I boiled the process, wrote it up the next morning, and sent it his way. Keith and Emily started a 4-day lyric-writing sprint that day, and completed the lyrics for WalkJog’s next EP that week.

I FaceTimed Em and Keith to hear more about their experience with the Creative Sprint.

“The specific goal was to have an outline of lyrics, like a rough draft,” said Keith. “It wasn't just like ‘write lyrics.’ It was, ‘have a rough draft of lyrics in the next four days.’”

Em added, “The goal was to do one song every day for three days, and then the last day, be able to look back over them and edit.”

Em and Keith went on to explain that writing lyrics to three songs in four days was a previously lofty goal, but the clear definition helped them accomplish it.

“I had less time to second-guess my process. I feel like if I didn't take this Creative Sprint approach, I wouldn't have gotten to where I got.”

“Okay, it's just the outline. I'm not really vibing on this word that I'm writing right now, but whatever! I'm just gonna move past it,” Keith walked me through his exact thoughts. “I had less time to second-guess my process. I feel like if I didn't take this Creative Sprint approach, I wouldn't have gotten to where I got.”

And it wasn’t just the number of words they wrote that was special. It was a shift in identity.

Em explained to me that while Keith is more of an inspiration-based artist, she’s more of a process-based one. She’s rarely struck by creative lightning bolts like Keith, so she usually lets Keith stand in the rain as their lightning rod, as she helps ground that electric inspiration.

“Before this, I thought, ‘Oh, Keith writes the songs.’ And I will add my two cents, maybe some lyrics here or there, but I was never really involved in sitting down and writing the lyrics. On our first EP that's coming out, I didn't do that. But doing this, it's like, okay, well, three of our next three songs I wrote, you know? And so I now see myself as going to be very involved. This is even a skill I could have.”

“It actually did create some room for Em to be involved in the process,” Keith said. “Now it’s in our arsenal of tools.”

Another tool in the creative arsenal can only be a good thing for a two-piece pop group that writes, performs, records, and markets all on their own. And where Keith sees an arsenal of tools, I see an arsenal of benefits with The Creative Sprint. Of course consistency brings results. But as Em showed me, consistency also brings identity. As one of the greats, Annie Dillard, once said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

So if what you want to be doing is creating, and if who you want to be is a creator, then start a Creative Sprint.

WalkJog’s Debut EP Soft Intentions comes out September 1st.
Follow along with WalkJog, and listen to their music via the links below.
Apple Music
Spotify
Instagram
YouTube
TikTok

Article photos by Valerie Denise Metz, designs by Reese Hopper.

Interested in trying a Creative Sprint of your own? Read the step-by-step process here. If you do one, I’d love to interview you about it. Send me a DM here or an email here, and we’ll talk.