Challenge

Pareidolia: Nature’s Art & Writing Prompts

Is It Writer’s Block, Or a Creative Urge Fighting for a Different Mode of Expression?

It’s tempting to blame a drought of words on a case of “writer’s block.” I joked, recently, with friends, “If I’m writing, drinking a beer, and start to feel a blockage, do I have ‘novel Corona virus’?” It’s a tired joke, already, but the idea that writer’s block is a disease — something that might pass, like a cold, given a bit of time and chicken soup — is laughable.

Writer’s block, in my experience, is a sign that there’s a creative urge, battling for expression, but stubbornly refusing to use its words. The harder we fight against it, the more we try to force the words, the more “blocked” we become. We want to write, but the urge wants to play on a different playground. We say, “Novel. Now.” The urge laughs, hands on its hips, and says, “Wet clay. Fingerpaints. Crayons — all 128 colors. Now.”

We should cherish the fact that we still have this playful, silly, creative urge. Rather than approach it with authoritarian rule and discipline, forcing it to conform, we can first try to embrace it and get it to work with us.

Grab a camera or a sketch pad. Go for a walk — whether it’s sunny, azure skies dotted with…