Behind the Scenes: From Stuck to Unstuck

The beauty of letting ideas simmer

Last time: Destroying the Places You Love Most

Willie the Whale, Enchanted Forest, Ellicott City Maryland

“Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.” -Chanel Miller, Know My Name

I’m still thinking about the destruction of places we love.

I recently wrote about the devastation of Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida, though I know I only glossed over the facts. I didn’t go as deep into the emotional ruins as I could. My hats off to writers who are able to get into the real muck of an issue without needing considerable distance and time to process.

I’m a writer who needs time. And I’ve taken the past few weeks to keep thinking about our attachment to places. The ideas have been simmering inside me, unhomed, until yesterday.

Yesterday could have been a below average day, as my son would call it. Work was emotionally exhausting and rage-inducing at times, but I balanced out the bad with slivers of good: sour candy, hugs with family, wings covered in Old Bay. I reminded myself to breathe.

It was not a good day for writing, but I tried anyway, shoehorning writing into the small gap between work/car line/homework/floor mopping/swim practice and pizza delivery.

Just when I was ready to quit on the unproductive, unfocused writing day, and my blank yellow legal pad, something clicked.

The basis for the idea was that same one I had left simmering on the back burner weeks ago, the destruction of places we love. It came roaring back. Or rather, it never left.

I remembered a place I loved as a child, The Enchanted Forest, a fairy-tale/nursery rhyme themed amusement park for children in Ellicott City, Maryland.

And then I remembered how after the Enchanted Forest shut down (years before it eventually moved and was rebuilt), you could still see remnants of the abandoned attractions from the other side of a chained link fence.

The dish and the spoon, the gingerbread man, and Cinderella’s castle. All of it dilapidated and lonely. Flaking paint and crumbling remains.

My favorite had always been Willie the Whale with his wide-open mouth to sit in. Shown below is the way it looked in the mid-eighties (me and my brother). Shown above, you can see Willie in a special state of decay.

One of my favorite photographs, though I don’t remember that day at all.

I needed this setting, the abandoned version of it, for the scene I couldn’t manage to write. There must be some little spot in our writer brains that lights up when we realize the perfect idea. That’s what it felt like to remember The Enchanted Forest.

And even though I didn’t have time to write the scene in that moment, I scribbled down the possibilities, which then made for an easier writing session this morning.

The scene is still rough, but it is written. More importantly, I enjoyed the process of writing so much more than my usual writing sessions.

What worked for me about this process:

• Sitting on the bigger idea (destruction and setting) instead of forcing it into a scene.

• Noticing what I lacked in my last few scenes—a certain fire or energy to my writing (likely because I kept my characters in the same stale places instead of letting them have an adventure).

• Showing up to write despite the “below average” day, despite not having much time, despite feeling completely stuck.

• Writing “what if” questions.

When I sat down to write, I closed my laptop. The gaping whale’s mouth in the middle of my chapter overwhelmed me too much. Instead, I stared at the newest page of a yellow legal pad where I’ve been brainstorming.

I wrote “what if” questions:

• What if the characters went somewhere new?

• What if Character A did the opposite of what the reader expects?

• What if these characters go to a place that is beautiful and ruined?

Somewhere in my brain, I conjured the photograph from my childhood (above). Then, another memory rose to the surface: standing in the cold, peering at the old amusement park through a fence. It didn’t take me long after that. I wrote the scene in less than an hour—pretty good for a slow writer like me.

Giphy.com

Note: creative blocks do not always get unblocked so easily. This particular challenge of mine was weeks in the making, but there were also weeks in the solution.

I’d love to hear what works for you, how you get unstuck, in writing or otherwise.

It turned out that I just needed to stop worrying about my word count, not stress about what I wasn’t going to accomplish that day, and go back to basics. Brainstorming—just like I tell my students. So simple. No writing guide books needed. All I had was a sheet of paper and the willingness to keep working.

If you haven’t tried emerging from the depths of writing hell with an idea you’ve left simmering for weeks (or longer), I highly recommend it.

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What I’m reading this month (all of which I loved or I am loving):

• Know My Name by Chanel Miller

• And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks

• Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

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