Not Sure What to Write About?

Writer's block is the most intimidating experience a writer may encounter. You sit at your computer for your assigned time to craft an article with a strict deadline, or a white paper your CEO wants on her desk tomorrow morning, or even a long overdue message to your mother. You stare blankly into the void. You start to tap your feet. Your head begins to rock in unison with the blinking cursor. Not a word appears. Then come the judgments: You've lost your spark. The muse is hiding out on you. You just don't have what it takes. You convince yourself you can't be blamed because moments ago you put your rowdy, exhausting children to bed. Or those long work hours are taking their toll on you. Maybe you shouldn't have had that drink. That big meal is giving you heartburn. Damn that buzz from the refrigerator. You can't get out of your head that person who has nothing to do with what you're trying to write. Twenty minutes have passed. Nothing.

Luckily, writers have numerous tricks to break writer's block. Whether you're a novelist crafting a thousand-page saga, a technical writer composing specifications and instructions, or an administrative staffer responding to hundreds of emails daily, you can employ one or more of the dozen tips I listed in a 12-part series on this blog five years ago. The series, "Breaking Writer's Block," leads off with my number 1 suggestion, which I have turned to countless times with invariable success: read. Besides being an indispensable means of self-educating, reading can also inspire, triggering a writing urge.

And here's a thirteenth recommendation, courtesy of Natalie Proulx writing for the New York Times in an article "310 Prompts for Argumentative Writing." Proulx's point is that responding to the 310 questions posed in the article on topics ranging from sports and the arts to parenting and school can get students from middle school to college started on writing assignments. While you may think that the questions listed in the article are irrelevant to the writing you do, I ask you to think again. Many of those questions are relevant to all of us, and you can modify those that do not suit you. The key is this: Anything that can get your fingers moving as a writer is worth examining. 

On the Value of Writing Well

Will artificial intelligence (AI) eliminate the need to write well independently? I think not, and I'm glad that Frank Bruni, agrees with me in his op-ed piece "Our Semicolons, Ourselves" in the December 21, 2023 issue of The New York Times. Bruni makes the powerful point that crafting an excellent sentence, paragraph, and essay leads to deep sense of accomplishment for the writer and a powerful intellectual experience for the reader. 

I do believe that AI serves as a fine kickstart for generating ideas, a good tool for producing sentences quickly, and perhaps an indispensable resource for improving quality. But being in command as a writer—doing the work of researching topics, assessing content, taking notes, composing rough drafts, reviewing structure and style—helps students of any major and businesspeople of any profession. Bruni goes a long way toward proving this point in his essay.

Addressing People in Writing (Revised)

Question: How should I address in writing someone I do not know?

Answer: The concept of gender identity has eliminated the practice of writing Mr. Singh or Ms. Zheng. Below are your options.

1. If you know the person's given name and surname: Write Dear Suresh Singh or Dear Dawn Zheng. You can replace the formal Dear with the less formal Hello, Hi, Good day, or nothing, depending on your relationship with the reader.

2. If you know only the person's surname and job title: Write Director Singh or Vice-president Zheng, or whatever their title may be.

3. If you know only the person's given name and job title: Write Suresh or Dawn and drop the title.

4. If you do not know the person's name but know their job title: Write Director or Vice-president, or whatever their title may be.

5. If you do not know the person's name or job title: Find out. But if you can't, write Hello, Hi, Good day, Greetings, or whatever you think is acceptable to the reader.  

As Nobel laureate Bob Dylan sang, "The times they are a-changing"; be a person of your time by changing with it.

An Olympian Thought

I have watched as a big fan the past 15 quadrennial Summer Olympics, beginning with the 1964 Tokyo Games, and the current Paris Games will be no exception.

I was a high school track and field athlete for one year because of my interest in Jim Thorpe and Bob Mathias, two decathletes whose biographies were among the first books I'd ever read.  I also remember reading The Bobby Richardson Story and The Great Houdini: Magician Extraordinary when I was in elementary school, a time when reading required books was laborious and distasteful for me.

This point serves as an important reminder that young people can find many paths to becoming lifelong readers. Sports sparked my desire to read. For this reason, I do not criticize reading graphic novels or even comic books. Just encourage virtually any kind of reading.

Going for a Ride

A big part of a vacation for me is the planning. That's why I book flights, trains, buses, car rentals, hotels, and entertainment events up to a year in advance. Once I buy that plane ticket, the vacation begins. I borrow a tour guide of the destination from the library. I search relevant websites as I plot a daily itinerary of the trip. I watch as many videos on the stops as practical to ensure I hit the high points of each location. I create an Excel spreadsheet to detail the expected expenses, enter the hotel addresses, and record the distances and duration of each drive. 

This year, one of the destinations is Colorado, where I will tour the Centennial State in a loop begining and ending in Denver, driving as far northeast as Estes Park, as far northwest as Grand Junction, as far southwest as Mesa Verde National Park, and as far southeast as Alamosa. I planned this exact trip for July 2020, but the pandemic squashed that opportunity. I'll be leaving four years older, perhaps less prepared for the high altitudes, so I am wondering how taxing the hikes will be on my lungs.

The main objective of the trip is to visit national parks: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado National Monument, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, and Great Sand Dunes National Park. The National Park Service provides America's greatest service to the world, as 318 million people visit its 429 sites across all 50 states. I have always enjoyed and learned from my trips to about a hundred of them. 

Worthy Words, Part 15: John Dewey

John Dewey (1859 - 1952) was an American philosopher who is still commands the attention of graduate schools of education three quarters of a century after his death. One of Dewey's best known books, Democracy and Education, establishes the purpose of education early on:

Beings who are born not only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and habits of the social group have to be rendered cognizant of them and actively interested. Education, and education alone, spans the gap. (Democracy and Education, page 3)

In the context of Dewey's position, I refer to education to not only what occurs within a school building. I include what elders teach children. A modern society tends to overlook this essential detail pf spanning the gap between ignorance and learning cultural traditions. Consider some of societal expectations: respecting public property; tolerating people unlike ourselves; contributing to the greater good of the community through work, learning, and volunteerism; investing in quality and safe food and goods; and providing housing, medical, psychiatric, social, sanitation, and security services, among other provisions. 

Sure, technology continues to change us, but we still need each other to perpetuate our species. This basic reminder from Dewey should be part of a teacher's oath.   

Worthy Words, Part 14: Albert Einstein

When Albert Einstein received a human rights award from the Chicago Decalogue Society on February 20, 1954, he opened his acceptance speech with this comment:

You are assembled today to devote your attention to the problem of human rights. You have decided to offer me an award on this occasion. When I learned about it, I was somewhat depressed by your decision. For in how unfortunate a state must a community find itself if it cannot produce a more suitable candidate upon whom to confer such a distinction. — Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, p. 34. 

If you think Einstein was attempting humility, think again. He was speaking at a time of McCarthyism, at a time not long after the Nuremberg Trials showed that following government orders or arguing tu quoque was insufficient grounds for defense against human rights violations. Yet, Einstein implies, too few people step forward to denounce government crimes and resist their creators and enforcers, and most who do arrive on the scene far too late.