Writer’s block

I can’t think of a single thing to say. How lame is that?

I want to write something about folksonomies. There are thoughts in my head, but they won’t coalesce into anything postable. (Maybe later.) I would write about the wonder that is Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s voice, but there aren’t the words for it. I would write about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I haven’t quite finished it yet.

I can’t even think of any poems to post in the Personal Anthology category. This is some kind of nadir of blogger’s block.

So here’s a question for you all: what helps you write when your brain just won’t get into it? Prompts, suggestions, amusing anecdotes about weird things you’ve done to invoke the muse, all welcome. Discuss.

4 Responses to “Writer’s block”

  1. Clancy says:

    Write about Romeo Camp! The person or the place, or both. Please, I beg you. I’d love to read it, and it might be a fun exercise for you.

  2. alan says:

    I write for a living so I have permanent writer’s block. There is only one way to overcome it, and that is to put off writing anything at all until a deadline is so close that I can neither meet it nor ignore it. I therefore write in a state of barely suppressed panic.

  3. Amanda says:

    Ah, yes, panic works for me too. Unfortunately there are no ironclad deadlines for blogging, just a nagging sense of guilt. Not quite as effective overall.
    Clancy: I promise I’ll write the Romeo Camp story. And as soon as I do, I’ll post it. 🙂

  4. Nina says:

    I find that, if I just write a LOT, then I’m less likely to have writer’s block. It also helps to have several projects going on at once–if you get blocked in one project, you can move to the next one.
    We also did “rush writes” in a workshop I took. We’d be given a subject (such as “a childhood memory”) and then write non-stop for five minutes. I have my own version that I use some mornings: I open a newspaper and find some small headline on page B-13 or so, and then I do a “rush write” about it. Sometimes it turns out to be creative writing, sometimes philosophical musings, and sometimes I end up on a completely different subject than I started with. Usually I end up with garbage, but the exercise does seem to apply a bit of neurological WD-40 to the old noggin.
    As for blogging? When I can’t think of anything to write, I just provide links to blogs of people who did think of something to write, thus sparing my readers of the “Ho hum, I’m bored and tired” posts that I sometimes start to write. 🙂