Never forget that you can always write about your past.  Just ask yourself some questions.  Like these (and don't forget to share):

Almost everyone has an experience of a disaster – a fire, flood, hurricane, earthquake, shipwreck, train collision, car crash, explosion, etc. And everyone has a story too. Tell the story of your brush with disaster. Write about the heroism you saw – the kindness, courage, generosity, tenacity of people coping with disaster. Or write about the greed and selfishness you saw, if that was your experience. How did your disaster experience change you? How did it change your perception of others? What did you do after the disaster that you hoped would keep you safe from another one? Did you move away? Did you campaign for better safeguards?

Never forget that you can always write about your past.  Just ask yourself some questions.  Like these:

Write about a book that influenced you, such as Catcher in the Rye, or For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gone With the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, The Color Purple. How old were you when you read this book? Did this book change your opinions or beliefs? What did it teach you? Did it motivate you to action? Did it challenge you, or did it affirm and resonate with your own experiences? Did it surprise you? Did you recommend this book to others, or discuss it with others? Was this book recommended to you? Or was it a “forbidden” book? Did the book live up to your expectations, or surpass them? *

* Excerpt from Making History: how to remember, record, interpret and share the events of your life. More lists of questions like this can be found in that book.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how to make your internal critic go away by writing about them, and told you that my critic was named Ed.  But Ed is only one of them – like most of us, I have several internal critics, all of them nasty.  Here is a piece I wrote about Cousin Irene, the voice inside my head who is in charge of procrastination, laziness, and all the addictive distractions there are.  

Cousin Irene lurches into the room, trailing leavings from her purse – a dried-up lipstick, a wallet with a broken zipper, a scarf that has gum wadded in it, and of course those old used Kleenexes. She doesn’t pick anything up, because that is my job. She plops down on the most comfortable chair in the room. Her bulk overflows the cushion and her dress rides up on her thighs; she is wearing nylon socks that only reach halfway up her meaty calves. She tells me it’s too hot to write today, and besides there is nothing interesting to write about, and even if there was something interesting, I would not be able to find it. She demands a glass of wine, even though it’s only two in the afternoon. She asks what’s in the refrigerator, and then says I should make her a plate of something, whatever is there. She turns on the TV; it is Judge Judy, which suits her fine, she likes to sneer at all those stupid people. She spills her wine on the front of her dress but doesn’t bother to wipe it off. 

After I wrote this, I asked Cousin Irene to leave. She gave me a sly look out of her piggy little eyes and promised to visit me again tomorrow.  Oh joy.

We all have internal editors or critics. That's the voice that tells you that you are stupid, a bad singer, clumsy, boring. It's the voice that critiques every piece of writing you do, every conversation you have, the way you dance. This voice often shows up when you sit down to write. He, she, or it leans over your shoulder and whispers mean things in your ears. My voice is named Ed. He used to tie my fingers up in knots and breathe dry ice into my brain. He doesn't do this so much any more, because I found out that I could diminish Ed's power by simply — writing about HIM.

Write about your internal critic. Give it a name. What gender is it? Is it human or animal or a black scary cloud, like the monster in Lost? What does it look like? Is it tall, short, fat, skinny, pock-marked? What does it wear? Is it sloppy or tidy? Does it speak in a loud booming voice, or hiss like a snake? Does it wear too much perfume, or sweat profusely? Is it older and wiser than you, or is it one of those know-it-all popular teenagers who used to inhabit your high school? You know your critic doesn't admire you, so who does it admire? Who does it hate? Finally, ask your critic — and then write down its answer — why it says the things it says.

You can do this exercise as many times as is necessary. Eventually it will become clear to you that your critic is not on your side. And then maybe you will stop listening to it.

We almost always think of the effects of other people on our writing as a "bad" thing - we worry that we are plagiarizing, or we're not original, if we use others' thoughts, opinions, writing. But this is not necessarily so. We don't live inside a vacuum. We are not separate from everything else. You can ride the words of others right into your own art, into your own mind. Here's a great exercise. Pick a poem, any poem. Pick a line from that poem, maybe the first line, maybe the one that most resonates within you. Write it down as a first line in a new poem, or an essay, or just a paragraph that you may or may not use sometime. Let that line take you where you want to go. Here is something I wrote, using a line from a poem by Hildegarde of Bingen: I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life./I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work./I am the yearning for good.

Here is what I wrote: I am the yearning for good. I feel this yearning as an ache, like I feel after pulling weeds in a choked and neglected garden. The pain in my back and knees hurts good, it tells me I am virtuous, a savior, and without me the small peppermint sprouts and the baby calendula would not grow to full glory. Without me those olive drab weeds would squeeze them to death and their healing possibilities would be unknown, merely compost in the dark spaces of the underground. I am the yearning for good, the good of belly laughter and the good that you see in a stranger's eyes sometimes — that naked longing for connection and the touch of gentle fingers. I yearn for the good of children painting, covering themselves and the carpet with thick yellow globs and long blue streaks, and even tasting some of it deep inside thier mouths; their tongues are green with the joy of creation. I am yearning to be with those children, to lie beside them on their sleeping mats and close my eyes in peace, knowing that no one will disturb my paint-soaked hair.

Here’s a fun exercise to do the next time you think your writing is becoming boring and predictable. Write for 10 minutes, or fill two pages, writing as fast as you can (don’t think!), and following this one simple rule:  each sentence must have a totally different topic than the one before it. This is not only easy, but fun to do, and it will jump start your creativity, dredging up new ideas and colorful phrases you didn’t even know were there. When you’re done you may have the first sentence of your next novel, or the line of a poem, or your weekly shopping list. But you will be revved. Here’s one of my exercises using this trick: 

Away down home the chickens are cackling. Today I’m going to bed early. Wearing glasses shrinks the mind. My pen is leaking. Outside the world calls me to come and play. The tree topper men were here today and didn’t pray before they cut down the trees. Sarcastic words dripped from his mouth like fly guts. We go on a ride toward hell, or perhaps I am mistaken. I can wear green because I’m lucky. If I went to town I’d walk down the cold and windy street and let the curls of industrial smoke blow through my hair. I wish I didn’t worry so much about nothing, but perhaps it is my job. Some people die with the name of God on their lips, others just die. Once I walked through the pre-dawn streets of Montmartre and saw the shop windows light, one by one. I look for gypsies under my bed, but so far none have materialized. After all I’ve done, I still want more. Today I was interviewed for a job by a boy of perhaps 20 and got an unpleasant glimpse into the future. My grandmother totters on her old swollen feet and wants to die but doesn’t know how. Whining is so unattractive; why do people do it? A frog leaps from the sludge and blesses me with his bright green croak. You must love with passion all your relations, past and future, and especially the ones who never got to be born.

What are the topics you can’t talk about, because you are afraid it will hurt, offend, or piss off someone?  The key phrase in this question is “because you are afraid.” What you can’t talk about, you can’t write about, and the belief that you can’t places a huge boulder in the stream of your creativity, damming up the free flow of ideas. 

Go ahead and write about what is taboo subjects. What might these be? Sexual subjects used to be taboo, although that’s no longer as true. But there are still lingering feelings about what is “nice” or “not nice.” Write something that is not nice; write something nasty. How about money? If I were to ask you how much money you make, you’d feel I was being inappropriate, wouldn’t you? Even though our culture is obsessed with materialism, many of us are secretive about our money – how we get it, how much we have. Spill your money secrets. Write about how you really feel about rich people, or poor people. Are rich people selfish, or poor people lazy? Some of the most common taboos are our family taboos; things were raised not to talk about – say Dad’s drinking or Mom’s pills, or our older brother in prison. What could you never say about these people? Write it down. Let it rip.

Now read over what you wrote and decide if you want to keep it, modify it, or throw it away.  Just writing what you really think and really feel doesn’t mean you have to use your writing as a way to hurt, offend, or piss off anyone. But at least you are writing. Truth really does set you free.  

Do you expect beautiful, transformative, profound words to flow from your fingers the moment you sit down to write? If you do, I bet you're often disappointed.  Why not borrow a technique from the jocks — warm up first. Here's a warm up technique I learned from Natalie Goldberg, in my opinion the best writing teacher on the planet.

Write (longhand works best for me, but you can use a keyboard if you want) for 5 minutes, beginning every sentence with the same noun-verb phrase. Some examples are:  "I am" … "I am not" … "I have/don't have" … "I love/hate" … "I go/went" … and on and on. Think up your own — any verb will do. Use different forms — he/she/they/you, as well as I. Use different tenses — future, past, present. Use positive and negative forms of the verbs. (Warning: the negative forms will often take you to your dark side — but this is well worth exploring.)

Here's a warm up I wrote some time ago, using the phrase "I am":

I am in way over my head drowning in salt water and choking on long strands of green seaweed that is clogging my eyelashes as well as my throat.  I am in a hurry, but have nowhwere to go. I am intending to dance someday soon, maybe when my legs grow longer. I am in a canoe riding the rapids of imagination but I lost my paddle so I am careening down a waterfall, and I see no earthly reason why I have to wear a helmet, what's the point, it'll just act as an anchor and drag me down into the water. I am aware that I've made a complete circle back to drowning, I wonder what that means. Perhaps it means nothing except more slag for the compost pile. 

Ah, finally!  You have some time to write — an hour, half a day, a weekend, a week's vacation. Now you can silence that nagging voice in your head that keeps whispering "you should be writing …"

 So you sit down. You arrange your tools — paper, pens, laptop turned on, open MS Word document. 

Everything is blank. Everything stays blank, faithfully reflecting your mind, which is also — blank. You have nothing to say. What made you think you were a writer anyway? Writers write. But you are just staring at blankness. You are a starer.

There are many techniques that will break the dreaded writer's block. I have about a dozen favorites.  Here is one of them:

Write a simple story, one that everyone has. For instance, tell the story of your birth. Start with your mother and father, or even cosmic dust. Even if you are adopted, even if you've been told nothing, you have a story to tell about how you got here. What are the family myths that are told about your birth? Were you planned, or an accident? Was your mother's labor long and difficult, or did you slide right out? Who was with her? Did you have a pointy head, or a squashed face, or a skinny butt when you were born? Or were you perfectly beautiful? What did you wear home from the hospital? How were you introduced into your extended family — your grandparents, siblings, cousins, and what did they think of you? You're here now, and once you weren't — so something must have happened, right? Just tell the story. Make it up if you have to.

Well, now you've proved it — you can write! Now that you are finished staring at those blanks, go ahead and fill the rest of them in with whatever wants to come out. 

Did you know even Shakespeare wrote garbage? Yep, it's true. Sometimes boring, whiny, confusing, silly, self-indulgent crap came from the ink-stained fingers of the Bard himself. He didn't publish his garbage, but I promise you he wrote some.

That's because great writing and garbage go together. Writing is an organic process, and beautiful writing often arises out of your mind's debris. The French have a saying: "You can't grow roses without merde."

What does this mean for you, the writer? It means don't edit as you write. Go ahead and let your mind and your fingers roam over the paper or the keyboard as they will. Yes, some of it will be crap. That's okay — you are making compost, that rich brown crumbly nourishing stuff that may smell ripe at first but that will enable you to produce flowers of enormous beauty.

That's what this blog, Thoughts from the Compost, is all about. I'm simply sharing some of my harvest. Not all of it will be scented golden roses or exotic birds-of-paradise. Some of it may be humble daisies, or even dandelions. But I hope you enjoy the bouquets.