Tag Archives: Writer’s block

“I would…But” A Writing exercise and my little stab at humor.


When I am in a rut like I am right now with my writing I often try to jump-start my brain with a Writing Exercise or two.  The next few posts will be focused on breaking past that block and showing you the results of my own exercises that I am trying.  As I have said in the past in my other posts there is no such thing as writer’s blocks just more of what I would call a writing malaise if you will.  So here is one of my first attempts to get out of it and start being more productive with my Novel and Short stories…

I like to often challenge the brain by forcing me to come up with a solution.  Be it a short scenario or situation to get out of, a cause/affect, or an  if/then kinda thing.  I wanted to have fun with that concept  a little so I decided doing it in a joke format called ” I would …But”  … so here goes my little stab or stabs at humor. They are in the order in which they were created first btw.  My goal was Ten..my brain was hurting a little towards the end. Hey its hard to be funny!   I hope I don’t make you suffer or groan out loud too much…:).

1.  I would call you an ass but you’d take it as a compliment.

2. I would say I love you but you might hold me to it.

3. I would say my ships about to come in but I just found out it was called the Titanic.

4. I would love to have sex with you but the sign above your head says now serving No.4 and I’m holding No.99 and I just can’t wait that long.

5. I would say you are the most beautiful woman in the world but I just had a sex change so I would be lying.

6. I would give strippers more money but they hate it when I try and make change for a five.

7. I would say the state of the world as a majority is mostly apathetic to the causes that face our planet on a daily basis and that we as a human race need to stand up and say enough is enough, let’s fight for what we believe in and have the guts and determination and discipline to stand behind our principles to forge a better brighter tomorrow for ourselves and our future posterity  but then again I don’t really care to leave my couch much.

8. I would like to thank my esteemed colleagues,co-workers, and friends who I climbed over and stomped on that helped make this all possible but for the life of me I cannot remember any of their damn names.

9. I would be a junkie but I am afraid of anything going in my nose, or needles into my arm, I would be a prostitute but I’m afraid of committment for cash, to much pressure to  perform I guess, I would be an alcoholic but I may be forced to go to AA one day and I just hate crowds and public speaking.

10. I would like to write a book that at least half the world would gush over and ooh and aw at it but I’m thinking I would have to kill about  7,640,000,011 Billion People to make that happen…dammit make that 7,649,000,012…I missed one!

Well there you have it…hope you enjoyed it as much as me…and I didn’t really enjoy it all that much myself…I’m just trying to jump-start myself as I said….

I will do another post soon to jump start my brain called Toilet Tuesday….its where I go into my bathroom at work with a pad and pen, push the button on the exhaust fan for  10 minutes and see what I come up with for a quick short story…and yes.. I am serious I will be seriously doing this…just you wait and see… I hope it’s something good. ( and no I am not actually going to the bathroom while I’m in there…I’m just using the timer function….sheesh what do you take me for)

Till next we meet…:)

Inspiration …and pulling yourself out of the quicksand


I never liked the phrase “writers block”. It always seemed to much like an excuse for saying its okay to give up.  But sometimes I think a writer can get stuck in the mud or in a bog of quicksand in their writing.  To get out of that quicksand sometimes you gotta look around at your surroundings and look for something to pull you out….a  rope, a vine, a ladder, a stick, a friend, a distraction of inspiration.

So here are some of my distractions of inspiration. In this era of the internet some can be found in various places on the web..they may be pictures, poems, videos, music, etc…now of course you are not regulated to just the website…talk a walk, look around ..look at the stars,   talk to a friend about the story you are working on. Bring up what ifs and  scenarios and let there mind tangle with it like yours can’t seem to do at the moment.

Studies have shown that the oddest places bring up spontaneous ideas…the bathroom is such  a place, So  go to the bathroom, or take a shower or brush your teeth.  A small nap in bed no matter what the time…walking your dog, petting your cat. Try consciously thinking of the thing that is causing the sloooowing down of your writing before you began your routine.  Then forget about it and let yourself be distracted and see what happens.

Maybe some of these things will give you some inspiration…see below:

Credit above pic to:  http://apolonis.deviantart.com/art/Deception-315967675

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What inspires you?