A Walk on the Other Side

As a writer, I confess I’m a creature of habit. Writing comes easiest when I’m in my usual writing “space”—a room tucked away from TV and other distractions. I put on some of my favorite music, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Chris Botti, and Norah Jones, and the words flow. Well, they flow most of the time…

Spending the winter in Florida where I write on a laptop in the dining room/living room while first football and now March madness prevails, however, has resulted in a bit of a block. My muse, it seems, stayed at home. And of course, the lure of sunshine, beach, and pool has also been hard to resist.

Still, I tell myself that's no excuse and call to mind one of my favorite quotes: "Those who write are writers. Those who wait  are waiters," coined by science fiction and fantasy author A. Lee Martinez. Yet despite my get tough stance, I still come up blank. All my forced sitting in front of the white screen seems to make it worse.

In desperation, I read a lot of how-to-break-through writers block articles on the Internet. The great number of the suggestions tells me I'm not alone in my dilemma. I find a common thread in many of the prompts that tells me I need to recall the joy that I first experienced when I began writing. One way to do this according to my research is to try a different genre, to take a “walk” on the other side—the other side of your usual writing, that is. If fiction is what you normally do, try a poem or a memoir piece, or vice versa.

So I decide to take a break and enjoy writing purely for writing’s sake without pressure. Why not play with words, I thought, like a kid in a sandbox? I can still visualize my now adult daughters as children just letting the sand sift through their fingers. Their joy in the texture wasn't marred by any need to create something permanent or profound. Inspired by that image, I take pen in hand and let my hand take over. I pick poetry as my "blockbreaker" because poets seem to truly love and treasure words. One of the sites I found helpful is Instant Poetry Forms.

Here’s a bit of fun I had with just a wee bit of poetry. It’ll never be in an anthology, but it was fun to play with the words and definitely the antidote to my writer's block. It does need one last line in the second stanza, though. Any idea, fellow writers? Send them to me! But only if you can have fun playing in my poetic sandbox...

A Writer’s Lament

Ideas aplenty come

As I sit by poolside

Long fled before I go to bed

Before the Sun’s memory leaves my skin.

The shower’s hour brings grand ideas

While I soap and shampoo

Gone, oh why, before I’m dry?


I'd also love to hear your solutions for those dry spells in your creativity. And remember:

The Good Old Days

Do you ever miss what you consider “the good old days?” Sometimes, I must confess I do find myself getting nostalgic about how life used to be. Billy Joel sums up those sentiments in the first verse of his song, “Keeping the Faith,” and as he says so well, it’s tempting to get “lost in let’s remember.”

Let’s face it. For many of us, the innocence of an earlier time in our lives can cause a longing for the past. In our memory those days evoke a simpler life style, one in which candy bars were bigger and a half gallon of ice cream was really a half gallon. I can also recall long summer days where getting lost all day, or at least until the real cows—not the proverbial ones—came home, was the norm. All that innocence of an earlier time can make one long for times past.

Unlike some of the images Billy conjures up in his iconic song, I was the “good” girl in the poodle skirt worrying more about whether my saddle shoes were polished to perfection or if that threat of a pimple on my chin would erupt before the Friday night canteen. My sole rebellion was hanging out of my friend, Jeannette’s, window puffing away on a cigarette. That adventure didn’t last too long as neither of us really enjoyed the taste or the smell of Luckies.

Still, I do look back on those carefree and rather egocentric days with pleasure, but I like to think “the past never got in my way.” So, if you think “I'm feeling older and missing my younger days,” read on.

Despite what I now consider some of my shallow teenage priorities, I also recall deep yearnings to live a life with greater meaning and purpose. I just wasn’t sure what path that should be. Deep within, though, I always “had the hunger,” a desire to find out where I was supposed to go and what I destined to do with my life. 

“Keeping the Faith,” as Mr. Joel states so clearly  involves holding onto the “desire” and the “music that “sets me on fire.”

Billy’s wisdom continues when he sings “you can get just so much from a good thing. You can linger too long in your dreams.” That’s what can happen when you believe all the good things in life are in the past. But here, I must disagree with my musical mentor. I don’t think we have to say “goodbye to the oldies but goodies.”

Instead, we need to put those days in perspective, not up on a memory pedestal as we are reminded that “the good old days weren't always so good.” That’s something we need to remember—sometimes social mores can bind us into corners. 

That became so clear to me recently when I found this picture of my husband and I posed on my parents’ porch, for the “Going off for the honeymoon” picture, one of the required photos in the ‘60’s wedding album. I recall that moment so well. I wore a pillbox hat, a suit with long sleeves, nylon stockings with the mandatory girdle though I weighed barely 100 lbs. The day of our May wedding was a record ninety degrees, yet the thought of wearing something cooler never occurred to me because I accepted the rigid social expectations of the times.

Finding this image got me thinking about how much I treasure my freedom now and  no longer have to worry about social trappings like not wearing white shoes after Labor Day or a hat to church. Now I’m completely unfettered, no more mental or physical girdles for me!

How about you? What do you not miss about your younger days? Then again, what do you miss? I do miss getting letters, those hold-in-your hand personal missives that you can feel and read over and over. But that’s a blog for another day…

So, I must finish with agreeing totally with the maestro when he stresses “And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.” For despite all the sadness and the turmoil in today’s world, I have hope.

 So, I sit back in my chair and listen, not to my 45’s, but to the music channel on my TV, sip my wine in my new stemless glass and think to myself, “ain’t it wonderful to be alive.” And plan on living as well and as long as I can while “the rock ‘n’ roll plays” and “the memory stays.”

Yes sir, I am “keeping the faith,” one lovely day at a time.