One Sip at a Time

Fountain in Rossio Square, Lisbon. Photo. LP

I have a few digestive issues - nothing I want to go into here. But one way I have found to address them is by increasing my intake of water.

I am not one of those who spends my days out and about in the world clutching a bottle of water, as so many seem to these days. As if they are about to embark on a week in the Gobi Desert, concerned with how soon it might be before they stumble across an oasis with a trickle of water seeping through the hard-packed sand.

But I keep a glass on my bathroom counter, try to remember to take a drink each visit there… I am 72, so you can imagine how often that might be. That seems to help me stay on top of my digestive ‘issues’.

Why am I telling you this?

Because on many forums I read  of people struggling with writer’s block. And I wonder if my solution could be adapted to their situation. 

I used to keep a stack of index cards in my purse, to record brief sightings, thoughts and passing fancies. One card for each passing thought. No particular expectation that it would grow into anything else. But if and when I did have a spare moment, I would often add a few related thoughts, notes, ideas of where I might go with the initial germ. 

From my 'archives' of germs, which live in a box in my study closet.

• 'Seen - A  tall boy at a bus stop nibbling around the edges of a chocolate bar.'
• 'What about a man, long returned from a life at sea who insists on keeping a huge stash of nautical maps?'
• 'Babies love berries. Picturebook title ‘Bumbleberry Baby’.
• 'A memory (hearing a couple of random phrases of Dvorak's New World Symphony) - 1970s Sunday afternoon at the Royal Albert Hall'
• Opposite me on the Skytrain all the way from Waterfront to Surrey City Centre - an elderly man in shorts... sinewy knees. What's his story?'

None of those germs went far... there IS a MS languishing in my drawer called Bumbleberry Baby, and the man on the Skytrain ended up living in a house on Green Lake in a story called The Ringing of Chimes. Also still in the drawer.

But at least while I was thinking of them, jotting down a few notes, playing with the idea on a page, I was keeping the dreaded writer's block at bay.

I recently read an article in which an artist talks about 'creative block' - which she believes if often more of a 'creative bottleneck' - so many ideas or projects on the go that nothing gets through.

Which takes me back to that glass of water on my bathroom counter. I don't need to drink a litre at a time, or even empty the glass. But a few mouthfuls here, and a few there, seems to keep things moving.

“Every day, writing. No matter how bad. Something will come.”  
Sylvia Plath, Poet