What To Do When The Well Runs Dry

Above: Workers assemble the roof of a stage in the Rynek Glowny of Krakow's main square in Poland on September 27th, 2008.
After the emotionally, mentally and physically exhausting visit of my grandmother last week, my creative juices were sapped. Not only had her presence been tiring, but I felt so disappointed and drained by the visit that I lacked the motivation or inspiration to photograph. Doesn't happen very often.

Next week, I will post the grandmother saga in full, a three-act drama, comedy and tragedy. I've been struggling to even write, and my journal has helped motivate me to keep penning my thoughts. What's a blogger to do?

"Writer's Block," as my creative writing teacher at the University of Iowa used to say, is a myth. There's no such thing. We think we can't write, that some math equation has left our brain so constipated that it can't even form a cogent stream of consciousness. But no, not the case. 

I had my graduate students practice what's called a "freewrite." We(and I use 'we' in the most inclusive sense) use it in the writing world as a way to break up the mental logjam plaguing the penniless author who's on deadline, or the biology freshman who can't get his term paper conclusion to evolve, or some tall, dumb polish kid who took creative writing because he thought it was an easy elective and pulled an all-nighter before the final. 

To do a freewrite:

1. Get a pen and paper, find someplace where you won't be interrupted. Quiet isn't always good, you might need some inspiration.

2. Time yourself. Give yourself 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The clock starts when you press your pen to paper.

3. Write. Don't think, just write everything that comes to mind(or better, things that you aren't thinking but magically appear on the paper), even if it's "jibberjabberwockyfoolypoolypants." In case you were wondering, that's normally what I'm thinking. 

4. when the time is up, read over what you wrote. Chances are something in this jumble of words is going to give you inspiration. If nothing else, it is going to force you to write something down, even if that something is jibberish. 

Creative writers use this in stories all the time(at least, all the creative writers that I know. Namely, me) to get things going and start writing again. That's what I do when I don't know what to write here.