That evil, dirty word!

Writer’s block.

That’s an evil, dirty word—okay, two words—that writers shouldn’t even read (unless they’re ambushed like you just were), much less ponder.

I’m sure writer’s block must happen to everybody—well, except to me. At least until now. I’m sure I probably just jinxed myself.

I don’t have any trouble coming up with blogs. Seriously, you can make a writing metaphor of about anything—they’re sort of like sexual euphemisms. The right waggle of the brows, and anything can be twisted to have a sexual context. Trust me, I know people who have made that an art.

Same thing goes for writing. Did you see Larry’s blog last week? Coke drinkers as writers? Brilliant of course, as he always is, but I think I’ve made my point.

So why don’t I have Blogging Writer’s Block? I think for a few reasons:

·         I don’t wait until the day the blog is due to think about writing it.

·         When I have a blog idea any time of the week, day or night, I sit down and draft it out, which often takes me several blogs ahead, so I’m not sweating it at the last minute.

·         I read other people’s blogs for ideas, look for things I agree/disagree with, and take their thoughts a few steps further.

·         And most importantly, I can twist anything into a metaphor.

But seriously, the very best thing you can do is write down ideas and stuff them in your pocket. Pile them up in a wad on the corner of your desk each night, and when it comes time to write a blog (and I don’t mean the day that it’s due, but a few days before) sit down and grab something at random. Make it a game or a contest. See how you can relate what you have on that piece of paper to an aspect of writing.

Larry has always been very good at challenges. That’s how we wrote this novel. He never complained of writer’s block or not having ideas—because they’re EVERYWHERE! So pick one out of the pile and start writing.

Plus the good thing about that is, if you start early and produce garbage, you still have time to work on something else, and turn out a work of genius…

…or at least not rubbish.