WRITING WELLS: WRITING IDEAS FOR WHEN THE WELL IS DRY

Today is Monday.
It is time to write.
I don't have any ideas.
Nothing.
Nothing from the news
or the current events of my own life.
Nothing from my present reading,
my imaginings,
or my wonderings.
No thoughts light
a spark just this moment.
No spark to turn words
into liquid magic
which will flow
from my fingertips onto the keys
or from my pen onto the blank page.

So...I do what I sometimes do... and just begin to write....

What can we do when our word well runs dry ?
What can we do to restart the flow of words and images and ideas?

Just Write 
Sometimes just starting to write will spark more words and thoughts and writing. By just rambling on the page for a paragraph or two, you may find your momentum, your focus, and your flow.

It is important to get your fingers and mind moving even if  you write over and over... I don't know what to write... I don't know what to write.  This was a favorite tip offered to my student writers, and it invariably led them to topics at which they may not have arrived in a conventional manner.
They found words they didn't know they owned.

Try it when your well runs dry.

First Lines
Sometimes starting with someone's else's words is just what we need to get our own words flowing.

Write that first line of a favorite poem or short story or novel.  Start there and let your mind turn this phrase over and over, noticing different nuances or illuminating new facets. Meditate and write. Contemplate and compose.

Or write that puzzling sentence-- the one that you read over and over. Write about and through that sentence, teasing out new meanings, deeper significances, or personal prophecies.

In addition to your own selected favorite first lines, for sources of other potential lines for this purpose, see my previous post, First Lines.


Wild and Wonderful Lines
Sometimes we read a line so delicious and savory -- the sound of it,  the feel of it, the afterclap that hangs in the air of it. These are the words after which there is silence.. we don't want to break their spell or end the magic.  These are words that surprise us in the middle of passage and make us gasp aloud.  These are the words that come to us again, that we remember at odd moments-- How we wish we had written these words.  Ralph Fletcher calls these golden sentences. Vicki Spandel calls the active practice of looking for beautiful words sentence stalking.

These magnificent sentences can be used as first lines for our own writing... or food for thought for an exploratory essay, an experimental poem-- or a brand new structure.

Several of my favorite wild and wonderful lines include:

The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment. (The Magicians: A Novel  by Lev Grossman) 

Wild women don't worry. Wild Women don't get the blues.  (Ida Cox, uncrowned queen of the blues- song lyrics, 1929)

What would happen if one woman  told the truth about her life? The world would split open. (Muriel Rukeyser, poem, Kathe Kollwitz, in The Speed of Darkness,  1968)

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. (The Color Purple by Alice Walker)

Analyze, Borrow, and Imitate

Sometimes it is not merely  words that get us going, but a structure or format of  a piece of writing.  What did the writer do?  What do I notice?  Can I name it ?  Can I do it too?
Mentor texts or texts that teach us how to write what we want to write, or give us a framework for our loose and unruly thoughts, are particularly helpful when we are stuck--when our word wells runs dry.

 I have recently discovered the work and words of Yehuda Amichai, hailed as Israel's finest poet.  I find myself wanting to underline every line, highlight every word in his lyrical, mystical poems.  And I have found several structures I want to try.
Dry days are days I experiment.

For example, in his poem As for the World, he begins each stanza with As for ....

As for the world....

As for my life...

As for the scream...

As for the deeds...

And in the last stanza, he repeats  this structure several times.

As for the palm of your hand,

as for the signals of my heart...

As for the writing on the wall...

This structure and several other structures he has used are on my list to analyze further, to borrow, to imitate.

For more on the value and use of mentor texts see the previous post, Mentor Texts: Learning to Write from What We Read


Nested Meditations

And finally, when I have no words to copy, or  analyze, or borrow.    I begin to meditate with a small phrase or a few words and let them lead me where they will.
.
The nested meditation is a simple, yet complex, cumulative, and layered  poetic structure created by Kevin Anderson.  It is my favorite tool when I am thinking about an idea, but don't know what to write, when I am sensing an idea on the tip of my mind, when I need to write, but my brain is not cooperating or forthcoming.

This is when I turn to the nested meditation.
The results always surprise.

Today's Nested Meditation
I don't know what to write. 

 I don't know what to write
and time is running out.

I don't know what to write
and time is running out
for yesterday's ideas.

I don't know what to write
and time is running out
for yesterday's ideas;
they are rotting as we speak.

I don't know what to write
and time is running out
on yesterday's ideas;
they are rotting as we speak
and tainting today's words.

I don't know what to write
and time is running out
on yesterday's idea;
they are rotting as we speak
and tainting today's words
as I search for a fresher yeast. 

For more on Nested Meditations and other writing ideas  for when you are stuck, see the previous and related post, Writer on the Block.

 See also The Writer's Notebook- Part 2 ( Resources) for additional ideas.

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Select a favorite first line, or puzzling sentence, or wild and wonderful phrase from a text you are reading or have previously read.

Use this line or sentence to begin your own new piece of writing.

Let your writing flow-- following where ever you are led by the words you have chosen.

Borrow a structure from a text you are reading.  Can you compose a new texs using this structure?

Try a nested meditation beginning with one small sentence.

FIRST LINES

 Image from A Diagrammatical Dissertation on Opening Lines of Notable Novels

First lines.

We have all had the experience of opening a book in the book store and being mesmerized by the first line, the first paragraph, the first stanza,  the first page.  

I have time and next time been hooked by the musicality, the poetry, the imagery in a perfect first line, an entrancing opening, a tantalizing introduction to a new world-- promising unique ideas--promising magic.

First lines.

I remember peeking into Weaveworld  by Clive Barker which begins with these words:  

Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.

The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connection will seem to grow more tenuous for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.

Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.

Nothing is fixed. In and out a shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden among them is a filigree that will with time become a world.

I was transfixed. I was hypnotized. How could I not read more ?   How could I  leave the store without  this book in my possession?

Recently at OCTELA 2014, Dr. Alexa Sandmann of Kent State University and the National Writing Project- Kent State University shared new award winning children's literature.   I was struck by two opening lines she read to us.                                                   

 One Came Home by Amy Timberlake, 2014 Newbery Honor Book

So it comes to this, I remember thinking on Wednesday, June 7, 1871. The date sticks in my mind because it was the day of my sister's first funeral and I knew it wasn't her last.--which is why I left. That's the long and the short of it.
But surely you'd rather hear the long than the short.

 Paperboy by Vince Vawter, 2014 Newbery Honor Book

I’m typing about the stabbing for a good reason. I can’t talk.

Without stuttering.

Plus I promised Mam I would never tell what happened to my yellow-handle knife. Mam might say that typing is cheating but I need to see the words on paper to make sure everything happened the way my brain remembers it. I trust words on paper a lot more than words in the air.

Yes, I need to buy these two books based on the first lines.  As we heard these lines read aloud in Sandmann's session, there was a collective sigh, and I am sure I was not the only one making a handwritten, digital, or mental note of the wonder of these words..

One of my favorite journals about writing, Poets and Writers, offers a column entitled Page One: Where New And Noteworthy Books Begin  featuring memorable first lines from novels, collections of poetry or stories, memoir and more.  

Here are two intriguing beginnings from the March/April 2014 issue.


 Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel by Helen Oyeyemi

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy.

 Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor (collection of stories)

We begin with the trouble, but where does the trouble begin?

Click here for the complete column in the current issue of Poets and Writers 

Which first lines do you remember?
Which lines are indelibly etched in your mind?

To jog your memory of wonderful first lines you have read in the past this online collection of first lines may be helpful.

And just for added fun for those of you who may want  to combine your exploration of first lines with  a touch of grammar, check out A Diagrammatical Dissertation on Opening Lines of Famous Novels, which analyzes and diagrams 25 notable first lines.(Yes diagram-- like in English class when we were young!)


Which first lines have you read or heard recently that made you want to run to the nearest bookseller to find that book?

Which first lines have compelled you, dragged you, doomed you to diving into a book you may not have planned on reading, invited you into a world you did not know you wanted to visit, and submerged you in words that made you newly alive?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Reread the opening lines of several of your favorite books.

What musical or poetic elements strike you in these lines?

What images or ideas compel you to keep reading. 

Using one of these selected opening lines as a model or mentor text,  write your own first lines for a story or poem.  Can you include any of your noted  features in your own lines?