Find Your Writing Quirk

Whenever I am in a writer’s fog I watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It helps to calm me down, so I can think about what I want to say. It’s not a loud movie; it’s a well written one. It urges me to attempt something as great, even if it’s just a blog post. I’m sure we all have that one thing that helps us through our blocks. Perhaps yours is a song. I knew one person who claimed staring at an old picture of his grandmother helped him write. And a lady I met once said she wrote best in a particular outfit.

When you are forced to write, you need all the help you can get. So if a walk in the rain helps to clear your mind, go for it. Don’t think yourself silly or foolish; it’s perfectly sane to do any little quirk that helps to push those great ideas to the forefront of your mind.

It may seem wildly romantic to someone who doesn’t write, the idea of sitting in some park somewhere, daises around, pen in hand, trying to push out the next assignment for your magazine, but for the writer who’s been in a writer’s fog for two days and only has two hours to come up with the best wine article a society magazine could ever ask for, it’s a nerve-racking experience. Suddenly realizing that daises help him relax may be the ticket to getting the job done.

You can’t expect your writing relaxant to be the same as any other person’s. I’m sure there are many people who couldn’t sit through Breakfast at Tiffany’s let alone write to it. You may need to try different things and write in different locations before you find that place where your muse comes alive.

On a typical Wednesday afternoon, I will see a number a number of writers typing away at their laptop at a small teahouse in my city. Do they all drink tea? Absolutely not, but I’ve heard on more than one occasion that the atmosphere is perfect for a writer. I disagree. I couldn’t sit there and even scribble on a napkin but there are least 4 aspiring novelists who feel in their “writing element” when they sit in that little teahouse.

It’s not that we suddenly become better writers once we find that thing that helps us but we are calmer, more excited and, at times, more inspired and this leads to a better writing experience. We are willing to devote more time to the exhausting task of writing. And let’s be honest, writing is exhausting. The thinking, typing, proofreading, it’s enough to make anyone go into a fog -on purpose. But if we can do things that make it less strenuous, if we can put on a song, a movie, or put ourselves in a different environment why not.

I may never be able to write like George Axelrod, the man who adjusted Truman Capote’s novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the screen, but when I watch that movie and write I can at least create something. Consider what helps you write. You never know, it may be the same thing.