Tricia Park
TIPS TO UNSTUCK YOUR WRITING
Second in a 5-part series
Sometimes, the hardest part is getting started. We get overwhelmed by self-doubt and too many (or too few) ideas as we sit, staring at the blank page.
Often, we just need a prompt to fire up our writing engines. Here’s a free prompt for you to try out today:
Timeline of your life.
● Set a timer for 10 minutes.
● Draw a horizontal line across a page. This is the timeline of your life.
● Mark off the first year at the farthest left and the current moment on the farthest right. For ten minutes, mark off all the events you can think of on the line. Eg: My first loose tooth, my first kiss, my prom, my wedding day, the day my dog died, etc. etc. etc. No life event is too small or too large. The choice is yours.
● When the ten minutes is up, look at your timeline and circle the event that calls out to you. Don’t overthink it, just pick one.
● Set your timer for another 10 minutes.
● Write down everything you can think of about that life event. When the ten minutes is up, you can keep writing OR circle another event and write for another ten minutes.
● Repeat as many times as you like.
These exercises work for two reasons: urgency and ordinariness.
Our (relentless) ten-minute timer creates urgency to focus our attention, giving us a finite amount of time in which to complete the exercise. The tension of not quite enough time puts a fire under our butts to write with intention while also giving us an out…since we only have to write for ten minutes.
And by drawing inspiration from ordinary things–using our senses, our favorite books, eavesdropping on conversation (or radio), everyday objects, and phrases–we relieve ourselves of the burden of starting. We don’t have to make things up if we just follow the things we find around us.
Build on this exercise by…
● Seeing if you can come up with your own exercises, too, considering the principles of urgency and ordinariness.
● Making your time limit shorter or a little longer.
● Writing in a different space each day and notice what ordinary, but novel things are around you.
Sometimes, even when I know what I need to do or have to do, it can still be hard to get started or follow through. That’s when I’ve found a little accountability can go a long way.
