Beat Writer’s Block By Using Limits
Struggle of Seasons Remitted
Poem about the seasons written using boundaries set by rolling dice to break through writer’s block.
The heat was tolerable as were the people and so apathy’s arm tightened until no motivation remained.
Hopefulness, false and knowingly so despite lip service becomes painful acceptance turned lackluster in late autumn chill.
Incomplete rejection breeds hostility fiery emotion of possibility realized through an envied future pushing back other’s disregard.
In Midwestern’s bluster, hands gloved, pocketed, I blow coffee steam into poetic visions upon the frozen lake.
All winter I wait, and when sun lights bright the water I strike out for adventures unknown.
Notes:
I have been having a hard time with writing lately, feeling like I am writing articles that lack creativity and honestly aren’t really all that interesting. Rather than put out another tired story, I have sat on my hands and my publishing rate has gone down while my stats and earnings have continued to decrease.
I felt I had started to turn the corner last Sunday but then mid-week my lethargy returned. I got a few decent stories out this week but even they failed to garner much support. Not willing to give back into the despondency which I knew would lead to a complete lack of motivation, I tried to come up with ways to force my Muse to make an appearance.
She’s such a flighty bitch.
I decided to write some poetry since this often helps me when I don’t have well developed ideas for prose articles or have started a dozen or more only to have them fizzle leading to temper tantrums. Since Oulipo techniques have always helped me stimulate new ideas, I made up some of my own rules and limitations to use with a new poem.
I enjoy experimenting with poetic forms, rhythms, structure and even sometimes the appearance of the poem. When writing this poem, I used three rules. The first one was that every stanza had to have exactly 17 words. To choose the number of words I rolled three dice. The second rule came from rolling a single die which dictated the number of lines per stanza which was set at five.
The last rule was something I set based on the fact that I tend to always write stanzas where each line is a complete thought, phrase or sentence with natural breaks between lines. So in this poem, I decided to use unnatural breaks between each line with only the final line of each stanza containing a complete phrase.
The poem above is the result of this exercise.
If you are at a loss for inspiration, roll some dice to set limits. You’ll be surprised how the boundaries of words, syllables, lines or whatever you choose to create rules around, will unleash your creativity and help you beat writer’s block.
Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press & Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured in several anthologies including Untimely Frost. She is Editor for 1-One-Infinity, The Partnered Pen & One Table, One World and is Editor in Chief for Promposity & Mental Gecko. Natalie is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.
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