The blank screen or page can be dangerous – stare at it too long and every idea you ever had can be wiped away. Avoiding the blank screen/page until you know exactly what to write is just as dangerous. Some days you’ll be blessed with ideas and images that inspire your writing and make it […]
Poop on Writer’s Block Part 3: A Habit of Love
(In Part 1, we identified the Poop Principle; in Part 2, we saw how love brings us back to our writing.) We love writing (or love at least a significant part of writing), yet we all have excuses and ways to avoid writing. Why this is so puzzled me for years. I explored and reflected […]
Poop on Writer’s Block Part 2: Love Brings Us Back
Part 1 invited you to write your Writer’s Poop List of the things you don’t love about being a writer. So why do we deal with all this s**t? Why do I pick up what a friend euphemistically calls “recycled dog food”? Because I love my dogs and that is part of having dogs to […]
Poop on Writer’s Block
I will always have dogs. I can truly think of no greater poverty for me than to not be able to love and live with a dog or two. I do not love picking up dog poop, but poop is an unavoidable part of having a dog. We do hire a service to remove it […]
10 Ways to Break Writer’s Block – Literally
“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” – Pablo Picasso Creation and destruction are opposite ends of the Transformation Continuum. You can’t create something without destroying something else. Create music, destroy silence. Create a garden, destroy weeds. Create a story, destroy all the other possible ways you could have told […]
Want to Write Easy? Meditate First
Meditation is one of the best things we can do for ourselves as writers. Regular meditation will: undo the damage of multitasking give us clarity soothe the body and reverse the negative effects of stress increase creativity provide entry to the creative flow/writer’s trance state of consciousness reduce anxiety and therefore reduce resistance to our writing. […]
Monotasking: The Quick Cure for Writer’s Block
Earlier today I realized it’s already Wednesday and I haven’t written a blog entry this week. I groaned. My head dropped and my torso slumped in my office chair. But now, I’m physically and mentally refreshed and ready to go. What changed? I just spent 15 minutes monotasking. I set the timer for 10 minutes […]
Step Away From the Marshmallow Part 2
In more recent versions of the Marshmallow Test, Walter Mischel tells children to pretend the marshmallow is only a picture of a marshmallow or a fluffy cloud. The children who employ their imagination could wait three times longer than kids who didn’t use their imagination. “Once you realize that will power is just a matter […]