Finding new material to write about every day is a challenge. When you have a 16-month old at home and the only quiet time you get to yourself is in the morning between 6:30 and 7:30 for about an hour, tops, your brain can be quite tired.
Sometimes all I want to do is just sit in my chair and watch The Simpsons. But I know that if I skip on a day of writing, it will be easier to do so the following day. It goes for the same that if I skip a day for hitting my step counter each day. Routine keeps my craft in check, and some days it's easier to write than others.
Like today, when I'm tired, I tend to find ways to write in these moments. Yesterday when I wrote the article, "Volunteering is good for the soul," I got the idea for the story by first writing a bunch of random words on the post first. The first words that came in to my head I wrote down. Other times, I look through my camera roll and find a memory that might trigger a post. And still others, I may look up a blog topic online.
When I was crunched for time, I may have pulled something I have written in the past, such as when I posted my article on my satire magazine. But now I am running out of pre-writing material, so it becomes all the more difficult to write in these tired moments.
I can empathize with my students when we have a writing assignment in class, and they are having trouble getting started. I give them the tips that I mentioned above, and if all else fails, I tell them to write about why they are having trouble writing. That's exactly what I'm doing today.
If I were to do my word exercise, the first words that would come to my mind would be Father's Day, son, Lego, train, swimming, pool, Tootsie. I'm a huge Lego fan, as prior posts indicated, and my Lego train just started working, to the great enjoyment of both myself and my son. I just saw the movie Tootsie for the first time last night, and although it wasn't as entertaining as Mrs. Doubtfire, it was still a delightful watch in its own right.
There's an example of how I wrote something from just extrapolating the words that were on my mind. I didn't look at any blog topics today or scroll through my photos, but I hope that this post offers some insight on how I arrive at my ideas. Coming up with article after article every day is not easy. I have written or posted something every day since April, and I hope to continue to do so as long as I am able. I got the idea from Stephen King, who said that he writes and reads every day. I also read every day, even if it's only ten pages. I'm currently reading a Stephen King book, The Outsider, a crime thriller novel that has a TV show attached to it on HBO Max.
So, this may not be the most exciting of posts, but I hope it might help those who are also writers that go through writer's block as well. For writer's block is one of the most frustrating things to have to experience. Perhaps tomorrow I will be a little less tired, and I will have a topic that will come a little more naturally. Until next time...