Tweak Your Writer’s Block

Go through photo albums and picture boxes,  You will be surprised at  what ideas will be begin to flow, make sure to have pad and pencil to jot down thoughts, and words that might lead to a good story, especially using old black and white photos or pictures of ancestors.

If you keep who keep old greeting cards or read through old journals and diaries.  You will find a story there somewhere.  Go through old scrapbooks and re-read old letters you might have kept.  All these will tweak your writing creativity.  Find and go through old magazines and even children’s story books,  You might find a story of your own to write.  

If you have any interaction with kids they are an excellent source for material. Kids are great with imagination. Talk to them get ideas from them, they are full of questions, musings, wonder, curiosity and make you laugh and think.  

Go for a walk, take you camera, look for interesting, unusual, beautiful, scenic and character’s of people to photograph. Take your note pad and pencil with you as well,  From there write a poem an essay or story. Go through old home video tapes those should give you a lot of incentive and motivation.  

Sometimes reading someone else’s article will give me an idea for another article sort of a spin off at times and other times just one line or word can trigger a whole new concept and idea.

What ever you do don’t sit at the computer fuming and frustrated because your mind cannot kick into gear and you cannot seem to write anything intelligent. When this happens it means your mind needs a break from trying to come up with material.  It is time to take a few minutes an hour or two or even a couple of days or weeks to do other thing and then ideas will come.

It doesn’t hurt to carry a small writing notebook and pen or pencil with you where ever you go, so when you get an idea while on a nature hike, or a trip to town. you can jot it down for later reference.  I have even woken in the middle of the night and due to a dream reach for pad and pencil and jot down ideas for an article or story.   Once that is done I can go back to sleep. 

Go back over the past years calendar at times will trigger a thought or an idea for a storyline.   There is ample material all around us, we just need to be attuned to it and when we get an idea if we can write the thought down enough to help remember what storyline we need.  It is handy to pull that notebook or even scraps of paper out and start letting the thoughts flow into a creative writing piece.

If you have several ideas, make a list,  put them into genretic categories and audience appeal and interest.  Go with your gut if a specific idea really is pulling you to put the words down then do it.  Don’t worry about typo’s or spelling, punctuation or grammar to start with.  Just get the creative thought going.   Once you get to a point you can stop, then it is time to go back and start fine tuning things with better sentence structure, proper grammar, spelling and punctuation.   

Have a couple of people you can run the rough draft by and get their input and opinions and from there continue to polish your story or article.   Before you know it your ready to submit your article to the public.