avatarRasheed Hooda

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What to Do When You Can’t Think of Anything to Write?

You check the pictures on your phone, of course. Bald Eagles, cranes, and ducks.

“Love Birds” — Pair of Bald Eagles by Rasheed Hooda

It’s Christmas morning, and that can mean only one thing. All the restaurants are closed. It may not be an issue for most people, but for someone living in a van, as I do, it is a significant problem.

Oh, I can fast for a day, that’s not a problem, and heaven knows I need to do that now and then. The problem is that with all the restaurants closed, I don’t have a desk, aka restaurant table, and a chair.

Fortunately, not all the restaurants are closed, but finding one is tricky. Given the fact that my van stopped running last night, I have more than a significant problem.

Christmas, or no Christmas, I still want to get my daily story published. I was planning on writing it last night and schedule it for publication today. That’s what any normal person would do. I was never accused of being normal, so there goes that idea.

I found a donut shop that was open, and my daughter is letting me use her car till we go to the movies in about an hour. I need to finish this and get it published within the hour. It doesn’t help any that I am a hunt and peck guy. To make matters worse, I can’t think of anything to write. Stress is not very conducive to creativity.

I scanned the unfinished stories. Nothing jumps up except a note that says use photos for inspiration to write. Hey, there is an idea. So I start scanning the pictures on my phone. I find one with a couple of ducks and a crane.

Crane and Whistling Ducks by Rasheed Hooda

These ducks are peculiar. They are called Whistling duck because their “quack” sounds like a whistle instead of the normal quack. A perfect subject for someone not known to be normal. There is more to the picture than that.

You might be wondering about the pair of Bald Eagle at the top of the page. Yes, there is a connection. There are a couple of places in the Houston area where you can find Bald Eagles nest. One is in The Woodlands, where I took the above photograph.

Then someone told me about another one that is in what’s known as the 1960 area. I had shot some pictures of baby eagles there before. I had gone there again hoping to get some more pictures, but it wasn’t meant to be. As I was leaving, I saw a crane fly in, so I stopped to shoot it, with my camera, of course. The ducks were there — lots of them. I had never seen them in the pond before. When the craned waded over to the shade where the ducks were, it made for a great shot.

There are no excuses if you’re determined to write. You can find inspiration anywhere. It was during a brainstorming session about article ideas that I had made a note to look at pictures to come up with ideas to write about. I wrote a story about another one of my photos last week that I am listing below, along with some other stories that might interest you.

Rasheed Hooda is a regular contributor to #ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium, where writers support each other to grow and prosper.

He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Join the Tribe)

You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”

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