Writing Tips for the Uninspired
Tips and tricks that will help you get a creative burst
Writer’s block is a crock of shit. Many of us are full of ideas. We think that some of our ideas aren’t good enough to reach the page. So we pull back and don’t write. Or we complain about not writing and say how anguished our writing lives are because of it.
Let me give you some pointers on things that I’ve found that will help you get going. These are all proven techniques and they will make you popular. These proven techniques have worked for me for decades. They are ancient Chinese secrets that have been passed down to me from my tribe of gay nomads.
1. Write cryptically
If you write cryptically, then no one will know what your piece is about. They can spend more time trying to decipher your interesting words. It’s a perfect way to keep their eyes on your work longer than normal. For Medium writers, this will jack up your reading time. Even if it sounds like the rantings of a loony person, at least you’ve written something. If you confuse people, they will think you’re mysterious, smart, or smarter than they are.
2. Go to the movies
This one is great. You can watch a movie that inspires some kind of emotion in you. You can watch something that makes you sad, happy, or laugh, and then write about that one particular scene that almost makes you walk out of the movie before it’s even over. Since you’re at the movies, you have much to complain about.
Movie theaters suck.
If it has been an eon since you have been to a movie theater, you can complain about how movie theaters are a dying and outdated medium for watching movies, anyway.
3. Listen to music
You love music. You listen to it in the car. You listen to it at work. You even listen to it in church sometimes when you’re bored and the pastor is rambling on about something you lost interest in five words in. Just the other day, I heard the song, “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy and it made me want to jump around the room.
You can write about how music makes you feel.
My go-to for writing about music is Weird Al Yankovic. I heard “Weasel Stomping Day” the other day. It made me want to do it and animal control was watching from a distance just clapping and cheering along. It made for a great story but I also had to buy new boots.
4. Write on a topic you are completely unqualified on.
It’s your life and your writing. Also, it’s Hispanic Heritage Month. Why not? Your last name might be Morgan but no one else is batting an eye at it. Mother’s chanclas be damned.
Embrace cultural appropriation? Dress up like a geisha. When people figure out that you’re not even Japanese, much less a woman, that will inspire you. You can write their reactions down…
No one gives Spielberg shit for Memoirs of a Geisha because those women were skinny and hot.
Do you want to chime in on women’s issues? Well, you grew up with women. You’re qualified enough. Go for it.
And you like women, especially when they’re skinny and hot.
If these ideas didn’t inspire you, maybe you are truly uninspirable. You should probably give up on your dream to be a writer.
These methods have made me one of the most successful beat writers for the local newspaper in north-central Vermont. If they can work for someone as uninspiring as me, they will certainly work on you.
Those of you who judged me for posing as a sports reporter at the NBA game to gain access to the locker room so that I could write that story about the penis length of each NBA player are probably thinking to yourself, this person is truly mad.
I made $27 from writing last year and that’s definitely a lot more than you have made sitting here with your “writer’s block”. Most of that time was spent in prison from the previous act but that’s still a lot better than sitting here fingering my butthole.
But I’ll let you know that inspiration comes in all forms and lengths. And I’ll go to any lengths to help inspire you to write. You should have no excuse.
The inspiration for this humorous story came to me from a weekly writing workshop on Zoom with the people over at MuddyUm. My rough draft was completed at that workshop and then I added more and also got some help from some super-talented writing friends. A special thanks to Susan Brearley for hosting that wonderful weekly Zoom and for giving some wonderful feedback after the session.
If you’d like to sign up and check out the workshop yourself, click here. Also, a special thanks to Kathy Minicozzi, my co-editor at Funny, Inc., and Jim Mercurio, a very talented screenwriter, and humor and satire writer on Medium. Thank you all for your support.
