Louis L’Amour, one of my favourite writers for Westerns—as in cowboys and the Wild West—was asked the secret of his prolific stories. He simply shrugged and said, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
I always loved that quote. I have it typed in big block letters besides my computer. But I realized that sometimes the water can be turned off, for whatever reason, and nothing flows from the faucet. When that happens, I follow Rule Number 17 from my archaic writers’ guidebook. I turn off the computer and head for the great outdoors. I realized long ago that if the page stays blank for more than 20-minutes and the mind is totally devoid of any rational or irrational thoughts, it’s best to take a break—and that’s what I did.
For me, the break-away from the keyboard, is a method for…
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