100 Completely Random Thoughts in 20 Minutes (The Sequel)
An extreme attempt to break through writer’s block
Like many of you, I sometimes wrestle with the menace that is writer’s block. Because the writing gods love to mock me, it’s not always a case of having no idea what to write next, but something even worse: so many ideas running around in my brain that I can’t focus enough to finish one of them. That’s where I’m at now.
Whenever this has happened recently, I have been able to break through with either a Song Stories fiction piece or yet another article about Springsteen. For the past few days, however, neither of those has helped break the logjam. As I was scrolling cat videos on YouTube — another intellectual exercise that sometimes works — I remembered a writing prompt from two years ago that just might prove beneficial (why a Siamese cat on a water slide triggered the memory I have no clue).
The prompt was “100 Things in 20 Minutes,” in which you list 100 random thoughts in 20 minutes. My original response is below:
