Writing in Snow

Never Say

Word count: 531

Never say, “I don’t know what to write.” This sentence is a invitation to writers’ block. This sentence is like inviting a vampire into your bedroom because it is the best way to suck the blood out of your muse.

When this phrase pops into your mind just let it pass. Do not try to stop it because that is like saying, “Don’t think about a white bear.” When you tell someone not to think about a white bear, a white bear is the only thing on that person’s mind.

When the sentence, “I don’t know what to write,” comes into your mind let it flow out of your mind like a receding tide or a wave rolling onto a beach. If you focus on lack of writing ideas then ideas cannot enter your mind because something else is already there.

There are writing ideas everywhere. To find an idea all a writer has to do is open the door to his or her imagination. The world is full of ideas for short stories, essays, novels, poems, and flash fiction. It is difficult not to find an idea if you are looking for one.

Ideas are like wild flowers growing on the side of a highway. All a wild flower needs to bloom is rain, sunshine, and compatible weather. All wild flower needs to propagate is a hive of bees. All ideas need to grow is imagination, meditation, and the willingness of the author to write whatever comes to mind.

Write whatever comes to mind. Simply sit down at a computer and type out your thoughts. Simply open your pen and paper journal and write whatever comes to mind. As long as a writer continues to write he or she will find ideas everywhere.

If your mind goes blank when you sit down to write, write anyway. Describe a completely blank mind; I do not think anyone can describe a blank mind because a person is always thinking about something. Thoughts flow in and out of the mind all the time. Sometimes a writer may not want to discuss or write about the thought subject, but that does not mean the mind is blank.

Food and sex are the subjects people think about most often. Other thoughts enter our minds, but sex and food are the most prevalent thoughts. Every eleven minutes an individual’s thoughts change moves onto a different subject. The mind wanders from one subject to subject every eleven minutes. Focusing on the present or the job at hand slows the steps of the wandering mind, but it does not prevent the mind from wandering.

If a person focuses on the present job then the thoughts that flow through the mind every eleven minutes will concern the subject on hand. A writer must learn to follow the path his or her wandering mind takes because that is where ideas are found. Ideas are wild flowers growing along the path of the wandering mind.

Never say, “I don’t know what to write about”. All you have to do is follow the tracks of your wandering mind and stop to smell the wild flowers growing on the side of the road.