That dreadful moment (hour? day?) when the words won’t come. We think of writer’s block as something that is stopping a well formed image from settling into the right words. But in reality, a writer’s block happens when our mental image is a little hazy and abstract. We can’t put it into words because words are precise, and the image isn’t.

To get back to writing, we need to sharpen that image. We need to make clear decisions: what are we talking about, what do we want to say about it, what details are we trying to bring into focus? A list helps. Not a pretty, well worded paragraph; a simple list of sentence fragments and single words that are all exact, decisive descriptions. When the decisions are made, writing can resume.