What to Do When You Cannot Write

I SAW A fine story on Netflix about a brilliant young chess player who was in love with her game, so in love that she placed each move she made on the squares of the chess board she had painted on the ceiling above her bed. I write out words I want to address each day, the way I once did when I’d select clothes for work everyday. “That curious purple jacket might serve well with the lavender silk shirt — or maybe the turquoise turtleneck.”

I am lured by writers who write as if they consider the selection of every word, in the way my mother attended to the exact stroke of her paintbrush or each key on the piano, every move of her fingers. I cherish the intricate attention of the fine editors who introduced me to this gift, starting with my father. When I was young, it never occurred to me that I would have the discipline and precision real writing requires. And to realize, now, that I’ve been a trip guide for some wonderful, wild, and challenging writers for the past thirty years. This makes me sit up surprised. I never expected to be a coach or any kind of authority on anything but the profile of a car, or which canyon has the most rakish curves. I still freeze up when I’m writing. Cross out words, and tear up pages; but I’ve got some notions here which help when I can’t write.

1. Move your body around — wakes up the brain. (P.S. I do some body exercises when I wake up, stretching etc. Dance to Elvis, or Gene Kelly. My body is still into movies — it likes to have a score for action scenes.)

2. Write down three words you haven’t ever used and how they might be of interest.

3. Describe, in ten brief sentences, aspects of someone you love.

4. And in the same manner, sketch out someone you do not like.

5. What does each description tell you? Does it reveal to you something about the character in the story you are wrestling with? (Or does it reveal to you something unacceptable about your own character.)

6. It’s Northern California; the wildfire has spread to your house. What will you risk your life to save? Why?

7. What is the one piece of clothing you lost on your last quick move which you still miss. (The Norma Kamali brown suede high priestess gown with big shoulder pads.)

8. If you were on a boat with five people, who would they be?

9. The boat is sinking. Who would you save?

10. Still trying to describe a person you do not like? What’s stopping you?

11. DIVERSION: Write a salacious scene which you have never experienced. Cast it with some people you know who you’ve never thought of this way.

TRUE EXAMPLE: As I’m writing this list I am looking at the lascivious palm tree guarding my balcony; giant Emerald waves crown a smooth, alert, sunlit core. A trunk thrusting up from a buoyant ruff, with the crispy Palomino bush.

NOTE: I turned my chair to face the balcony from a new angle, and here, I found this image, this earthy distraction. This is why I write. For these trips, images, and expressions which rise up, and give a bit of a flourish to the day.

12. If a raunchy subject is awkward, go deep. Consider why you might have made these choices.

13. If you could choose to recover someone you have lost, who would that be, and why?

14. Now write three pages about this person using most of the words you discovered. You’ll find they arise with bold new significance.

Now here’s what NOT to do when you want to write. DO NOT:

Go on Facebook

Or Text. Or Twitter. Or Tweet.

Or Look at messages. or news.

And also when you cannot write, separate the occupation called work, or journalism, from the gift of imagination and restoration of the spirit called story telling.

Pick up a pen, or a pencil, and some paper and write the image that comes to your hand.