charles barrow's writing

Comic Sans to the rescue - be gone writer’s block. I read a post on FB, from a writer, saying that she'd discovered a really helpful tip for anyone suffering from writer's block: change the font you usually write in, preferably to Comic Sans, and the problem will almost magically evaporate, as if that particular font has some kind of healing power for the suffering wordsmith. She wrote, quite lovingly, about the soft, rounded quality of the letters, and how this helped to stimulate creative thoughts. Quite frankly, I was sold. Also, as soon as she posted this revelation, other writer's who had discovered the same (or a similar) trick, weighed into the conversation saying that it actually didn't matter which font you chose, because the mere fact of switching up the font, almost always had the desired affect of shaking loose a stream of words/sentences/plot twists and other desirable weapons in the war against the blank page. Changing the colour of the font was a popular ...

I wrote a post recently (see 'ponder and mull' below) extolling the virtues of staring into space, daydreaming. I'm satisfied to (re)discover that someone I have a lot of time for, Julia Cameron, says we shouldn't feel bad about doing this and we should consider it a way of refilling the well of creativity. That is a great way to think of it, and I like this concept a lot. I would always listen to Julia's advice since I read her book The Artist's Way years ago. She really helped to focus my mind at a time when I wasn't so able to do so myself. I still write my 'morning pages' to help clear debris out of my mind and keep on the right track, I don't write them every day but maybe a couple of times a week. I'd really recommend checking out her books if you are stuck, have writer's block and can't move forward.