First Loves
Most of us get writers’ block.
A lot.
Then, inexplicably, the urge to clean the kitchen or watch bad TV takes over and before you can blink twice, the sun has set and another day has disappeared…
The key to overcoming the experience of not being able to write is to keep the pen to the paper, to keep the sentences coming, to keep going – it doesn’t have to make sense, it’s the practice of writing that makes the writer achieve his or her goals. The other secret is that you have to write every day, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes. If you want to finish that poem or short story or novel, then chip away every day.
Once again, in the spirit of late night television, I’ve compiled a list of “Top 10 Prompts” that I consider to be my favorites:
1. Describe an annoying habit of your first serious boyfriend/girlfriend.
2. Write in 50 words or less the worst meal you’ve ever eaten, who served it to you and how old you were at the time. 3. Take a Neruda poem and substitute all the verbs and adverbs with your own choices.
4. Use only clichés to describe a city street and the people walking on it.
5. Describe the first lie you ever told.
6. Name something you’ve stolen, whether it was money or kisses or gum.
7. Describe the circumstances where you were first so nervous that you could feel your hands shake or your palms dampen.
8. Write about the place where you are most at peace.
9. Describe what noise annoys you the most and why.
10. Use only landmarks (groceries, shoe stores, pawn shops, etc) to describe how to get from your house to the airport.
What these questions have in common are the opportunities to explore old-hat topics in new ways, to, as my teacher Ethan Canin once said, “write about what you don’t know about what you know.”
What is your favorite prompt, the one you’ll be using later today to achieve the writing goals you’ve set for yourself? Or might you pick one of these?