Writer's cramp

Writer's cramp
Strange writing prompt this is. We writers must lead a worse life then anybody else, because we are the only ones asked to write at moments we cannot write, about the exact thing that holds us back from writing. What is more, we are asked to name it and discribe it in detail and find a cure, but we may only use 999 words or fewer.

How often have I been asked to write about things I do not agree with, I do not know anything about or I could not write about because the thought of writing about it made my brain cramp up, writer's cramp. An article with less than 1000 words could take days that way.
How I wish writer's cramp was a normal disease that many people suffered from, people with money, so the pharmaceutical companies would get grants to go after the cure. But no such luck, it is only writers who suffer from this affliction, and it is not contagious, unless you are working in the same room with a writer suffering from an acute attack of writer's cramp.

Some writers have found a cure. Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle for example followed his main character and used heroine, or so I have heard. But apart from the fact that it is illegal, I think this is a remedy that does not work. You have to be wide awake to be able to write, so drugs of any kind would seem to be counterproductive.

No, my dear fellow writers, there is only one cure for writer's cramp. You have to sit down, or stand up if you have one of those modern standing desks, and stare at the empty page on the screen of your laptop until the juices start flowing again. The problem with that policy however, is that most writers are not very patient. So they go and take a walk in the nearby park, or in my case on the nearby beach in the tropical sun. We think the writer's cramp is caused by the tired brain, so we try to relax the brain.

But while walking along the beach, in the park or just along the street, the muse-brainwave could hit us, the writer's cramp could just magically disappear, and we would miss the moment. Or, and that is the worst case scenario, we could realize the cramp has gone, but have nothing to write with.
On the beach and in the park there is no WiFi, so even the small tablet or smart-phone cannot be used and how to lay hands on a pencil and paper, or even an old fashioned portable typewriter, in this day and age? There are no such things anymore.

Now where I find myself, on an island in the tropics, (any good writer should live on his or her own island in the tropics), there are still pencils to be found, in any corner shop. And notebooks of any size you would want, from too small to handle to too big to carry around. So all I have to do when the anti-writer's cramp brainwave hits me, is run to the nearest corner shop and buy what I need, find me a chair on that beach and start writing. Yes, the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper.

But yes, I have found the cure for writer's cramp, and many writers with me. Go and live in a place where development is still a little behind on the rest of the world, or a lot behind if you like it that way. This little island is in fact not all that little, there still is a lot of free space, untouched by humans, anyway, nearly untouched.

All the fineries of modern life are here, they are a little harder to come by but that is what makes life here interesting.
And now for the real cure for writer's cramp, new ideas, new material, new people to write about. Because even the novels about Mr. Sherlock Holmes, by our illustrious predecessor, must have been based on what Mr. Conan Doyle saw, heard and felt around him in real life. That is really what we do, writers write about the world around them. We do not form or change that world, we only observe it, feel it and express those feelings in words.

So the next time you feel like your brain is too tense to move even an inch, get off that seat you are sitting on and go to the beach, or the park, go see the world around you. Look at the people interacting and make up your own story around them. But take a simple pencil and a simple school notebook with you. Because when the muse hits you around the head, she will only do it once. If you miss her, she will be gone forever.