When Words Don't Come
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
This is a copy of my 20June 2026 guest blog at the most excellent blog site, Ladies of Mystery. I was graciously hosted by the murder mystery and western romance author Paty Jager.
I sit at my desk, thinking, researching and tapping out intriguing stories when my brain freezes, and not from eating ice cream too fast. I’m mired, stymied, frustrated. I’m trapped in a lonely, silent space crowded with self-doubt and growing angst. Not even my thesaurus shakes me from this synaptic tundra. My brain repeats the same words, like Jack Torrance in Stephen King’s “The Shining”. Okay, that’s over the top, but you get the idea.
The dreaded block strikes most often when I’m stuck in a sentence that cries out for more imagery. A character whose fingers were cold. Just cold? No, no. This character is worthy of more. Somewhere in my loony cranium, I hear “SIMILE”, like, uh… “cold as ice”. Way too obvious. “Cold as a cucumber.” Used too much. “Cold as…,” “Cold as…” I stare at my screen. “Cold as a fish?” Again, too hackneyed. Ack! The block has me in its clutches!
A group of treasured friends from my grade school years once asked how I come up with funny, unexpected phrases. My confession surprised them. For me, they seldom just pop onto the page. I work at it. And when I’m truly stuck for a scintilla of an idea, I stop staring at the screen. I tap my pencil, swivel in my chair, study the scenery outside my window. Whatever it takes. Deadlines be damned.
One day as I stared at a recalcitrant phrase and my thoughts drifted into an epic, redundant stupor, I pushed back my comfy, wheeled, stuffed chair from my paper-strewn desk. I decided to walk around the house. If my brain cells were stuck, at least my body could get in some steps. I paced around the dining room table, circled the kitchen island, hiked up the steps, down the hallway and back, thinking: “Cold as a walrus’ tusk.” “Cold as a penguin’s flippers.” Did I tell you I booked a cruise to the Antarctic? “Cold as a granite coffin.” Oooh, that’s dark. “Cold as the frozen crab legs in my freezer.” Now that’s just silly. “Cold as a viper’s stare.” Oh, that fit.
I now use the walking-around technique whenever I’m truly struck. And that might be the end of this story, except for a little adventure I had with my 10-year-old granddaughter.
On a recent babysitting gig, my husband and I took her to the American Dream Mall. “Sprawling” doesn’t capture the mammoth structure. We wandered about and bumped into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. What a treat. We could select various questions for which each honoree had recorded answers. A video of each famous New Jerseyite popped, and we heard their answers. So cool. Bon Jovi, Connie Chung, Mark Kelly, and Jason Alexander, to name a few. But my “ah-ha” came from… are you ready… Judy Blume.
Yes, Judy Blume hails from New Jersey, and what she said fascinated me.
When she was a young girl, she spent hours bouncing a ball against a wall. So much so that her mother worried about her mental health. You know how moms can be. Judy said she was working through issues, ideas, plots, whatever. And she told us, science has confirmed a link between movement and creativity.
In 1997, the British Journal of Sports Medicine reported that physical exercise can improve creativity. In 2021, Austria’s University of Graz found a relationship between physical exercise and imagination. I expect further research is being done by human scientists that artificial intelligence will tell us all about it.
I continue to wear out my carpets to capture just the right bit to slip into a sleek, cheeky, glum or silly sentence. And it’s not bad for my waistline either.
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