Today I offer the second in an occasional series of articles aimed at helping you overcome writers block. This involves personal memories and as such will be different for each of us.
Do you have what I call a memory box? Photographs of the children when they were growing up, a marriage photograph, perhaps a death certificate. A survivor from a holiday. Take the memory box down, pick a few items from it and write about them. It may be challenging but it will awaken the memory and imagination cells.
Part of my memory box is a group of photographs stretching back to the early 1950’s of my brothers and sisters. They are not like the photographs you have to day, big, blousy, colourful, and throwaway, No, these are in a small book, black and white – no colour then – about half the size I suppose of a traditional postcard.
When I take them down and look at them, it helps me recall my growing up, the pets I’ve had, my school days, the good and not so good times. It helps me imagine and when I return to my creative writing I find the juices beginning to flow. Try opening your memory and see what happens and as always go with the flow.