Detailing Writer's Block

The Devil is in the details could easily apply to Writer's Block. Sometimes we are hung up on a fragment we feel is vital to the story, setting, background, or action. Maybe we need to research it to have the information necessary for an accurate description--or even for an inspiration.

Using details to spark your creativity can be as simple as sitting back and cataloging your environment. Whether it is your room, your yard, the laundromat, Starbucks, the library or wherever you are trying to write, start to notice the details. Capture them with a recorder, be it electronic or old-fashioned pencil and paper. Maybe even make little drawings to accompany the words and help remind you of the experience of being there. Make that Being There.

Being There means fully present, using all your senses and your mind (more on that in a moment).

• What do you smell? How many different fragrances are wafting before your sniffer? Focus on the odor and try to detect all the components, pleasurable and not so much.
  
• Taste is more difficult, and I'm not going to tell you to go around licking everything, but do what you can and note what your tongue experiences, texture, flavor, acid, salt, sweet, savory; breathing in; breathing out; pinching your nostrils shut (no smell changes taste).
  
• Touch, within reason, every object you pass or that you can reach. Feel the various textures and describe them. Feel the temperature. Savor the sensations.
• Seeing, really Seeing, is worthy of an article all its own. Don't just pass your eyes across the scene and call it seen. Linger on each item and scrutinize it carefully. Have you ever studied people's ears? Fascinating!
• Now do the same with your ears, listening to all the music that makes up the background of your life. Separate each component and hear each noises individually. As I have previously advocated, listen in on others' conversations--priceless prose to use in a story.

If you are observing and hearing other people, your thoughts may engage in puzzling out what they are doing or talking about. Before you know it, your imagination is teased back to life wondering, wondering ... and what if?

By the time you are bored recording all this minutiae, I guarantee you will have ideas galore for resolving your temporary interruption in the flow of creativity.