Don’t know what to write?
Sitting in front of your computer. Hands on key board. Blank page in front of you.
And an hour later you’ve realized that being stuck on that first sentence would be a luxury compared to the living terror which is that cold and relentless blank page before you. Staring back at you. Mocking you.
I have a solution. Go do something.
Grab your camera, and go somewhere else (even if it’s still inside your own home) and do something, take pictures, make notes. Then come back and write about it. Put together a tutorial on how to do a certain thing, or write a personal essay, or just comment on your afternoon– it doesn’t matter.
Here are some of my favorite things to do:
- Cook. I make some darned pretty goodies. (And after I’m done, our family gets to eat the evidence.)
My example of some fine lookin' cookies
- Take a walking tour of my neighborhood. There’s always something interesting going on, or something new to see.
- Go to my local historical society, and take the tour. Most little museums allow cameras, and a few sell postcards. I love comparing how it was to how it is.
- Organize my stuff. One of my most popular blog pages is a page with pictures and descriptions of my sewing machine feet.
- Do something I’ve never done before. This is a double edged sword really, catastrophic crafting failures make the best writing fodder, but then I usually have a brilliant mess to clean up (and evidence to hide.)
- Watch my dogs play. I’m convinced there’s a whole ‘nuther world going on in our house.
- Repair something that’s been broken. Or, in my case, try to repair something and then describe how things managed to go horribly horribly wrong.
