Letting What You Love Battle Writer’s Block
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, multi award-winning author of the
HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for Writers
Writers’ Block is a malady many complain of. To cure it, writers have been known to write about it. But I think there’s a better way to tackle it. The ancient Greeks sought advice from the Oracle at Delphi but also inspiration. The Chinese did the same with the I Ching; the Egyptians the Tarot, the American Indians the Medicine Wheel, and the Scandinavians the Runes. Many today follow the Zodiac. All are more than superstition if only because we use them to better examine our own needs. When we know ourselves better, we are more creative.
A few Christmases ago my son and his wife gave me a book that included a set of cards—flash cards of sorts by Naomi Epel. When I use this kit I often think of my friend David Cho. He is Fung Shui Master to the Stars who coordinates people’s Chinese Zodiacs with the Chi in their homes and more. Like his clients, I found myself thinking more positively, even thinking in new directions, when he did his magic with a weird fountain made from a cattle trough and introduced it for good luck near our front door. It fits beautifully with the antique implements I use to from my polygamist great grandfather’s farm I use to decorate my front porch with. It was an exercise in learning to “own” my own past.
I once took the time to explore hieroglyphics, something that must have been difficult for even the Egyptians to read given the lack of punctuation and no firm left-to-right rules (or right-to-left, top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top rule, either!). There is something about the symbols that affect thinking, including the symbols you are reading in this moment.
I am convinced that following my inclinations made me a better writer but also inspired the first edition of my The Frugal Book Promoter, now in its third edition and the flagship book of my HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for Writers.
Aside from steeping myself in any topic that intrigues me which is a magic worker like none other, I find it works better when I do it with a pen and Post-it notes at hand. I write down anything that occurs to me and plop those notes into a Wedgewood sugar bowl that once belonged to my grandmother. You’ve never heard of “found poems?” When you fill a favorite container with scrappy phrases, go back through them and you’ll always find a poem there. Sometimes it’s just a suggestion. Other times several of those notes get strung together to make a complete poem. After I’ve assembled the lines, all I have to do is go back in a few weeks for a hard look and a harder edit.
Here are some other aids that will help writers and others from being their most creative in all kinds of ways.
Write something that helps another author. Send them a blurb (praise) to use to in marketing. Or write a review and post it on Amazon. Nothing works better to slay writers’ block than gratitude. If you need a starter for that project, check out The Art of Assssment: How to Review Anything by Magdalena Ball at her site, The Compulsive Reader. Writing about the books we are reading inspires and saves that step of having to come up with a theme or storyline. Her book will get you started reviewing books, films, movies, restaurants and other stuff. And she assumes no prior reviewing experience!
When I visit museums I take my copy of A Describer’s Dictionary by David Grambs. When I run across new phrases and words that curators use in their descriptions and catalogs, I jot them anywhere I can find space on the title pages, the margins, etc. of this book. I’ll soon run out of space. I’ll probably just start stuffing it with Post-its!
I love to use “rules” of grammar. Rules are way different from laws; they’re ready-made inspiration for writing something new and a different. My penchants for that inspired or anything my own The Frugal Editor (now in its third edition!) as a way to break rules creatively.
Let me introduce a web-friend of mine, Roberta Allen. Her book never fails to make me happy. I’ve never seen it in a how-to book on curing writers’ block, but I swear happiness is the best curative! It’s the The Playful Way to Serious Writing by Roberta Allen.
Of course there is always this classic approach to writer’s block: It’s Jenna Glatzer’s Outwitting Writers’ Block with tips for writer’s block…er…inspiration…and it sets an example with lovely nonfiction prose.
Or, yeah. We can always try the “tried and true” methods of the ancients. The Greeks and Egyptians got a lot of things right; it couldn’t hurt to follow their lead.
MORE ABOUT THE WRITERS ON THE MOVE
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Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. Carolyn writes nonfiction for writers, poetry, and fiction and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She will soon celebrate two years dedication to writing for the @ReaderViews’ fun flip e-magazine First Chapter Plus edited by Suzanne Violante. Neither she nor Karen Cioffi, founder and editor of this #WritersontheMove blog have never contributed to my own very rare attacks of writers’ block by asking me to hue (on cue!) to a holiday theme or specific topic! Just knowing I have a column to do each month is the little nudge required to get inspired.
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