I love this. I'm thinking it could help with the 'write what you know' dilemma which is:

Two of screenplays I've written are about the subject matter I know best yet are my most boring. I think because I know too much and can't let go of the minutiae.

Along the same lines, I find that problem-solving for others is easier than problem-solving for myself. I don't know what it is, but often I can't think of a solution to a dilemma until someone else asks me to help them with it. Then I have all kinds of ideas. I don't know why that is, exactly, but it seems to be the case.

One of my favorite lines from Mamet's "Heist" also applies to writing:

"I tried to imagine a fellow smarter than myself. Then I tried to think what he'd do?"

This is very much like the idea that I have been encouraging for years, working with screenwriting students. The dialogic of dramatic screen storytelling that requires the writer to alter his/her psychical distance to story by operating from different vantage points or perspectives, one of which is "audience", which is an act of the imagination. Read about it at http://www.wheresthedrama.com/audience.htm

this is similar to something you just taught me through the scene-writing challenge. I found that with writing the prompt scenes, I wasn't personally invested in them, as they weren't my idea, they were a project - and as such for some reason I could just knock them out very easily, whereas story ideas I have come up with on my own, I labor over them for months if not years and can't write a single page of actual screenplay for them because I'm overthinking the whole thing. I'm now trying to turn the scene prompts into a way to outline the stories, and bang out scenes from there. Will see if it works!

"So the next time you start to develop a story idea or even write pages, why not adopt a different persona? Not you, but someone else responsible for being creative. That just might be the trick to freeing up your creativity." For ME, a big plus here is that it will be somebody else who writes something that sucks. So there's less pressure that way, too. :)

Right you are, Justin. Hey, wherever these dumb writing tricks help, great!