Two a.m. The blank screen taunted me.
The minutes flew by, and with them my hopes of a passing grade.
I was taking an esoteric graduate-level class. It had only two students. And it looked like we were both about to botch our first homework assignment—by never starting it.
You’ve been there. You too have stared into that abyss, wishing words would come. Competent words. Clever words. Words that should flow naturally.
That night nothing was flowing. We’d been told to write a computer code to solve a physics problem, maybe involving a spinning top and some charged particles. But never mind the details. Like any writing project, the process involved staring at a porcelain-white page that wouldn’t fill itself.
Fortunately, everything came out alright. Rebecca Oppenheimer, are you reading this? Thank you, a thousand times!
Rebecca was the other student in that physics class. She showed me the trick I’m about to share with you: a mighty cure for writer’s block. I don’t promise this approach will unclog the pipes for everyone. But I have never again suffered from writer’s block since I learned it.
Rebecca took my empty file—that loathsome empty file—and gave it a name. Not a nice name. She elbowed me mercilessly out of the way, reached over and saved that file onto my computer’s hard drive with the filename “Turd1”.
Sure, you can giggle. But don’t. This is serious advice from one creator to another. We are talking artist to artist, writer to writer here. Turd1.
Seeing that goofy, nonthreatening name on my blank file untied the knot in my intestines. The tension in my sphincters dissipated. The creases in my forehead faded. You get the picture. Ahh!
Now get this picture. Whatever it is you’re supposed to be writing right now, whatever white bowl of a page you’re supposed to be filling, save that file on your computer as “Turd1”. Erase whatever other title you had for it. Now it’s just Turd1.doc.
Your only desire henceforth is to live up to that name, to pass a single, small lump of feculence. You can do that! Write the worst you can, not your best.
Sit down. Let go. Then do some more. Top that with a second turd! Turd3, Turd4…Feel better? You can clean up afterwards.
I do not remember what classical mechanical dance the spinning top and the charged particles did together. But I do remember that a few turds in, we had solved the problem, or at least excreted something good enough to discuss in class the next day. And I don’t mean to brag, but since then it’s been one stool after another out of me—non-fiction turds, fiction turds—all oozing out with turdly ease.
I hope you don’t find this tip to be turdally useless.
Dr. Marc J. Kuchner is a drummer, dad-joker, and NASA astrophysicist. He wrote Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times (Island Press) and Cosmic Collisions: Asteroid vs. Comet (Candlewick/MIT Kids). You’ll find him most days in Rhode Island, on planet Earth, in the solar system, in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, and at www.marckuchner.com. By the way, Cosmic Collisions: Supergiant vs. Neutron Star comes out in April. You’ll probably want to pre-order a few copies to help fertilize your houseplants.