A day in the life…of a freelance writer

*Woke up, got out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

And looking up, I noticed I was late

Found my coat and grabbed my hat –

Then it hit me.  I had nowhere to go but to my home office.   So I turned and –

*Found my way upstairs and had a smoke

Somebody spoke and I went into a dream…

Which soon became a nightmare as I began staring blankly at my computer screen.

This is how I spend many mornings as a freelance writer – thinking of ideas to write (and hopefully sell) in the solitude of my pre-Civil War apartment with no one around but Hugo, my dog.  My husband seems the lucky some days, headed morning to his office where he’ll laugh it up with co-workers throughout the day.   

Sure, I’m laughing, too, well, laughing sardonically, if you will.  I haven’t come up with a decent story idea in hours. Then suddenly, one idea pops into my head.  Duh!.  I could write about the things I do when my ability to write isn’t happening.  

So here’s the piece – five things that may boost your own writing process.

1. To hell with all those caffeine naysayers.  Drink coffee. Lots of it.  It works for me. But if coffee’s not your thing, try guzzling a few Chai teas, Red Bulls or whatever it takes YOU to get where you’re going, which inevitably hopes to be “The End.” 
2. Call a friend, introduce yourself to a stranger, meet someone for lunch. Open dialogue can be a tool of inspiration, a dramatic device, even a cathartic means of getting words to the page. 
3. Jump up and down screaming, run around the block, hit the gym – whatever it takes to get those endorphins pumping and the creative juices flowing. 
4. Sift through your old document files and re-read all those uncompleted stories you’ve written. Sometimes love, er, story ideas are better the second time around. 
5. Never give in to writer’s block.  Seriously.  Turn off the computer, turn on the world.  There IS a story to be told somewhere, anywhere, every where you look, inside and out, up and down, there and back. 

*My thanks to John Lennon and Paul McCartney for writing “A Day in the Life,” recorded at Abbey Road Studio  ~ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967, Parlophone, Capitol, EMI)