Writer's Block: What To Do About It

If you're a writer who hasn't written for months, things begin to happen. Your imagination which might be better used to write a story wanders elsewhere. All your good ideas hover around you before dissolving into thin air due to the harsh criticisms you unleash on yourself. Writing is like a muscle that must be flexed. If it is not flexed, you begin to ache.

I have writer's block presently. This may sound odd because I write interviews and the occasional editorial on this website, but it's true. I haven't written fiction for months, and it's killing me. I was talking the other night with my friend and she told me about how, after not writing for six or so months, she finally took the time to sit down again and the experience was so cathartic, she wept. She realized the answer to all her questions was the fact that she hadn't written.

Now her story didn't have to inspire me, I already know I need to write. I've opened up Microsoft Word and have typed and deleted 20 different paragraphs over 20 minutes. and I keep thinking to myself, why is it so hard to get started?  

Luckily I found this:


A year ago Patricia McNair (the author of the sumptuous and honest short story collection, The Temple of Air) began sharing daily journal prompts on her Twitter. The prompts are one or two sentences and feature an image (usually from a great movie) and it's amazing how they inspire. I want to share it here because I want other writers who don't know about it to see it, too. I hope it helps all of you out there with writer's block.

Now if I could only get past my own self-criticisms and write a short story...

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