Here’s a tip I got from Natalie Goldberg about what to do when you stare at the blank screen or paper and can’t think of anything to write. Write for five minutes, or two pages, or whatever metric appeals to you, and start every sentence with “I want to write about …” and let your hand fill in the rest. She recommends you do this exercise in longhand, so that’s what I do. Trust me, your mind hates sentences with subjects and no predicates. It will fill something in, and then you too will know. Here’s what I wrote the last time this happened to me: I want to write about big meaningful stuff that shouts “Wisdom! Wisdom! Get Your Red Hot Wisdom Here!” I want to write about how we’re all swamped by our own loneliness and how joy and fear co-exist, living together in a too-small overstuffed apartment in my head. I want to write about how life calls for courage, we have no choice but to be courageous or die. I want to write about my cat using the couch as a scratching post even though she...

Many years ago, I read a book that reawakened my young dreams of becoming a writer. That book was Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. One of Goldberg’s most effective tools is to “keep your hand moving” when you are in the throes of the creative process. In other words, do not edit as you write. In fact, don’t even think. To people like me who live in our heads too much, this was transformative advice. A few years later, I read another book that transformed my life. It was The Artist's Way , by Julia Cameron. One of Cameron’s most effective tools is “morning pages” in which you start off each morning with a “brain dump” that consists of transferring whatever stuff is moving around your head onto 3 pages of paper, in longhand. I married Goldberg’s and Cameron’s advice, and for about twenty years I have been doing morning pages by keeping my hand moving. I use cheap notebooks and an expensive fountain pen. (Tools are important. Writing is a physical process.) By ...