WRITERS ON THE BLOCK

Writers block.

Writers block 

the truth they know.                                 

Writers block
the truth they know
in their first mind.

Writers block
the truth they know
in their first mind
(instead of) giving full rein.

Writers block
the truth they know
in their first mind
giving full rein
to their second and third minds.

Writers block
the truth they know 
in their first mind
giving full rein
to their second and third minds
ignoring the words.


Writers block
the truth they know 
in their first mind
giving full rein
to their second and third minds
ignoring the words
eager to be born.



Writers block

That's what we call it when we can't get started, when we don't have any ideas, when we just don't have anything to write about--nothing to say.

Nothing has happened.

Or everything has happened --and it is just too much to sort out and organize-- and you don't know how you feel.

Reading  stories of other writers may help.

Reading about the ways they gather ideas,  notice the ordinary, remember the extraordinary, pay homage to their musings, and  noodle around with words may be just enough to nudge us off the block that we writers sit on when our second minds tell us that what we thought in the first place is no good.

Reading about how Langston Hughes,  while riding a train, was struck by the many rivers that have run through his ancestors veins, flowed through his people may help----  the result was his poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers.  Robert Burleigh tells this story in Langston's Train Ride.


William Carlos Williams may get us down off the block-- he writes about everyday ordinary things around him in a loose conversational style, that we may find easy to imitate, and then make our own.  

He is able to look at life and see beyond the present object to deeper insights and truths. He tells  his stories through small short musings. Two of his  well known poems include, The Red Wheelbarrow and This is Just to Say.  His story is told by Jen Bryant in  A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams.


In Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street, Eve sits on her stoop, (or rather on the writer's block) unable to think of ideas for a school writing assignment in which her teacher had simply said Write what you know. From the various characters that live  in her neighborhood, she receives advice that will draw us all down from our writer's block. 

The actor: The whole world is a stage-watch the stage, observe the players, and don't neglect the details. 

The cook: There's always a new way with words- find the poetry in your pudding

The dancer:  Stretch your imagination-stretch the truth. Ask What If?

Another neighbor:  It's like making soup- add a little action, a little spice

When I read this book one year to my fifth graders,  we made a chart of writing suggestions we found in this book .  The chart remained on our wall all year.   They referred to it often when they were stuck.

So sometimes getting unstuck or coming down from the  writer's block is as simple as looking at the writing, the objects around you, your ideas, or the assignments from a different angle, turning them over to see the underside, the hidden part, or noticing the obvious parts that you may have deemed unimportant.

One of the ways I meander around ideas is using the nested meditation form that opened this post. I love the structure of this short form  created by Kevin Anderson.    

The rules are few and simple (and flexible):

Begin with a single line that forms a complete sentence. 
Each stanza must be a complete sentence.  
Each stanza must include the lines from the previous stanza (punctuation and capitalization may be adjusted as necessary for each stanza to make sense) and each stanza be able to must stand alone.

For a more extensive explanation and for samples of nested meditations see Anderson's book,Divinity in Disguise: Nested Meditations to Delight the Mind and Awaken the Soul and his website.

 While on a CAWP retreat at Kenyon College, a couple of years ago,
I wrote another poem about being stuck.  Click here to read the poem, Staring at the Blank Page.

What do you do when you are stuck in your writing?

How do you climb down off the writer's block?

 Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Consider a piece of writing on which you have been stuck, or an idea you have been unsuccessful in writing.

Select or create one line with which to begin a nested meditation. Where did that writing lead you ?  What did you discover?

Try one of the ideas suggested by Eva' s neighbors to work on a piece on which you are stuck.