Discover Inspiration for Writing in Any Neighborhood

Just about every writer struggles with writer’s block at some point.

It can arrive during times of calm. Or during a storm of anxiety. While transitioning. Or when things get too stable. Too boring. It might be driven by fear (what if my creativity is all dried up?). Or maybe even over-confidence (I’ll get to it tomorrow).

Often, we get stuck trying to decide what to write about in the first place. The thought of a blinking cursor on a blank page can send any writer into a flat panic.

But what if we find a way to change the blank page into possibility? How can we look at it in a different way? How can we shake loose from the grip of writer’s block?

What’s in Your Neighborhood?

And that’s just it. We don’t necessarily need to discover something new every time to find inspiration for writing. We just need to pause long enough to change the way we see something we already know. “Write about what’s in your own neighborhood,” a guest speaker advised my writing class during grad school.

At the time, searching for ideas in my own suburban neighborhood seemed impractical. I didn’t live anywhere particularly exciting (which I actually saw as a perk). I had lived there for years (if there was something interesting to write about, surely it would have jumped out at me by then). Not this neighborhood, I thought.

But then our guest speaker reminded us of the One Small Square books written by Donald M. Silver. Through the eyes of a child, he pointed out, even one square foot of any backyard is full of fascinating details. Full of story.

I looked out at my own backyard. The swing-set. The slide. The old shed we’d inherited from the previous owners that looked like a tumbledown shack. The Camellia tree that created a secret room by the way its branches arced to the ground like an umbrella.

There was so much story right there. It was like I’d never noticed my backyard before, even though I had been out there hundreds of times.

Now that my family has moved to Hawaii, five-thousand miles from the East Coast (where we call “home”), there’s something fascinating around every corner. There are sea turtles. Dolphins. Whales. Volcanoes. There are so many potential topics to learn and write about that I’m almost paralyzed by too many new ideas.

Discover Inspiration for Writing in the Neighborhood Within

And yet, there’s something else. There are all the deep feelings that come with transition. The uncertainty. The homesickness. The fear of not belonging. They’re in my neighborhood, too. They’re worth noticing. And writing about.

Because right now there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words. —Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sometimes, all it takes is to pause for a moment and look around—outside your window and inside your own heart.

What iridescent spider’s web have you walked by without noticing for a week? A month? What square foot of your yard or the playground or your favorite hiking trail holds miles of discovery and story? What about that lonely tree on the lawn? What stories has it witnessed?

And when you look inside at the neighborhood of your heart, what do you see? When you take that fear or anxiety or boredom that’s holding you back from writing and turn it over in your hands… when you really see it, what story is it telling you? It might just be the very story someone else needs to hear.