Skip to main content

Writer's Block


Beginning to write can seem daunting at times. The process of deciding what to write about can cause a great deal of anxiety as you stare at the blank page or white screen. As it is also a very exciting prospect, having the opportunity to start and create something outside of your own self, finding the words to start can be difficult. One thing that I like to do is to write about how I am feeling, describing the anxiety and the discouragement, and forgetting that I am actually writing at all. I start to yell at the page, in angry exclamations, about how the experience scars me and makes me want to scream. Eventually I get to a point where I realize that I have cleared the block, unfrozen the stream, begun building the setting and have expressed myself without even realizing that I was doing it. Then I look around me, nervous that the others on the bus may think me weird for the contortions and scowls I have been throwing at the computer...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Missing Pieces

After I finished B. Coming Burl, I was fortunate to have many people read it who had grown up with me and knew for themselves, or who had grown old with me telling them my stories of a misguided youth. Several of them reminded me about stories that I either (1) had to edit out during revisions, or (2) had forgotten to include. So now I have decided to share a few of these missing pieces - teasers for those who haven’t read it, and a bonus for those who have. One story was from way back in the mists of my youth, when I was about four years old. We would make periodic pilgrimages to Nogales, Mexico as a family to buy essentials. I have fond memories of the small family-owned grocery store where my dad would buy café combate in small burlap bags, which the owner would grind for us in the back of the store, filling the space with the most amazing smell of fresh coffee. We would buy salsa from the factory and my brothers would buy fireworks to blow things up when we got home. Th
Post a Comment
Read more

Daily Routine

My routine is to write on the bus. I work in Seattle and live in Tacoma and so my writing salon is the Sound Transit bus, the 590. Both the north-bound (in the morning) and the south-bound (in the evening) is my literary capsule, driving through time and space while I am cocooned in my thoughts. I often write about people I see on the bus. If any of my characters seem familiar, and you take the 590, I may be writing about you. My inspiration often comes from seemingly inconsequential occurrences. As an example, seeing the rivulets of water tracing the glass on a rainy day, or overhearing a conversation between two people where one person says, in exasperation, “They can’t keep us in suspense like this!” From these small happenings I spin great tales in my head, with ideas cascading off of one another and building momentum until I spill over with excitement about the images that I conjure up with my vivid imagination. And then I get to my destination and I get off the bu
Post a Comment
Read more

Writing background...

I began writing at a very young age and really never stopped. I wrote in journals, I wrote short stories, and I wrote poems. I also wrote a lot for work. That was an interesting oeuvre, to be honest, and one that might be of interest someday. The work-related writing included both highly technical instructions and also letters of apology to guests who felt slighted in some way during their stay with us at the hotel. Although most of this isn’t publicly available, I am certain that some of my responses to guests on TripAdvisor are still there. It took me fifty years but I recently finished my first book, a memoir, entitled “B. Coming Burl” and self published it using Kindle Direct Publishing. Even before I published it I began writing my second book, which I plan to finish this summer (2020). It is entitled “When I was a child I found the entrance to hell to be a real place”. Although this second book is fictional, it has a lot of me in it. Thank you for finding my blog.
Post a Comment
Read more