Despite being a so-called “writer” (creatively, as a hobby, and technically, as a profession) – you’d be surprised how hard it is to actually write much of anything. Thomas Mann once said, “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” The fact is, if you write a lot, you tend to over think your writing a lot as a result – what this leads to is the dreaded “writer’s block” (taboo words in many creative communities, lest your blank page infects the minds of others like some sort of artistic influenza.) To combat this, I've found that things like writing prompts are incredibly useful tools – writing prompts are simple exercises or scenarios people have come up with to help stimulate an idea, an inspiration, and etcetera (two websites that I always visit for good prompts arehttp://writingprompts.tumblr.com/ and http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts.) For example, one of my favorite prompts to do is “write about a place you've only visited once, using as many sensory references as possible.”
Somewhere in the distance, a brass horn howls at the moon, mournful and haunting. The sound drifts through the hotel window like cigar smoke and I wonder if the heat catches those somber vibrations like it did the humidity that clings to me in sheets. The music ebbs and wanes and it could be coming from across the street or across town with the way streets and alleys lace through the city like veins. New Orleans is narrow passages and dead-ends – a labyrinth of mortar and concrete that scatters sound like cries from a lost miner.
Someone down on the street corner yells their friend’s name desperately over, and over, and a couple of minutes later the shrill cry of a police siren approaches; I am curious if the two are related, hope that they aren't, but think that they are.
A crack hits the air like a bull whip from somewhere nearby. After being here for only a week I want to tell myself that the noise is just an old town car backfiring – its rusted and sagging exhaust struggling valiantly to breathe one last gasp of air into the car's lungs. Suddenly all the dogs outside have stopped barking like they are holding their breath, and part of me can't shake the feeling that what I heard was a gunshot. The whole time that old brass horn never stops howling.
It's three in the morning and New Orleans refuses to go quietly into the night, for there are ghosts about.
30 minutes and a blank page became something short, but what I think could be a great start to something I may want to expand into something longer. The creativity behind some of the prompts you’ll find makes it impossible not to be able to start writing, and I can assure you there is no better cure for a mind struggling to put pen to page.
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