The Writer's Block: 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Richard Price grew up in a Bronx housing project and channeled his adolescent experiences into a great literary debut..." (more)
Key Phrases: Annie Proulx

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

OK, so it's a gimmick. A book in the shape of a 3-inch block. It'll take up too much space on your bookshelf. Its 672 pages are unnumbered, making it nearly impossible to find the same one twice. It is full of contradictory advice. And once you've used the book a few times, it'll more closely resemble a splayed slinky than a block.

So what? Author Jason Rekulak believes that inspiration "can be found anywhere--in dreams, highway billboards, newspaper personal ads, the Yellow Pages, restaurant menus, family photo albums, and bizarre morning TV talk shows." He has packed his stubby little book with kindling aplenty to ignite the fire of your writer's imagination. Open randomly to photographs and spark words ("traffic jam," "waiting," "hitchhiker," "prom"), writing challenges, and writing topics. "Chronicle the longest amount of time you've ever gone without sleeping," recommends one page. "Write about the biggest secret that you failed to keep," advises another. Describe "ten minutes that still make you cringe," urges a third. Write about one of the 300,000 Americans who consume at least 10 cups of coffee every day, or one of the 100 people who have registered with the Florida Department of Corrections to witness an execution, or one of the 3,500 members of the International Flat Earth Society. If none of that is enough to bump up your production rate, follow the lead of crime writer Charles Willeford. "Never allow yourself to take a leak in the morning until you've written a page," he says. "That way, you're guaranteed a page a day, and at the end of a year you have a novel." --Jane Steinberg

Product Description

Inspiration Running Low? Is Your Muse out to Lunch? Need a Nudge to Channel Your Creativity?

Here’s the first book on writer’s block that’s packaged in the shape of a block—3" x 3" x 3"—with 672 pages and more than 200 photographs throughout. Next time you’re stuck, just flip open THE WRITER'S BLOCK to any page and you’ll find an idea or exercise that will jump-start your imagination. Many of these assignments come straight from the creative writing classes of celebrated novelists like Ethan Canin, Richard Price, Toni Morrison, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Within these pages, you’ll learn how Joyce Carol Oates uses running to destroy writer’s block. Elmore Leonard describes how he often finds ideas just by reading the newspaper. E. Annie Proulx discusses finding inspiration at garage sales. Isabel Allende tells why she always begins a new novel on January 8th. And John Irving explains why he prefers to write the last sentence first.

Fresh, fun, and irreverent, THE WRITER'S BLOCK also features advice from contemporary editors and literary agents, lessons from the awful novels of Joan Collins and Robert James Waller, a filmography of movies concerning writer’s block (i.e. The Shining, Barton Fink) and countless other surprises. With this handy little book at your side, you may never experience writer’s block again!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Running Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762409487
• ISBN-13: 978-0762409488
• Product Dimensions: 3.1 x 3.1 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,998 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Real Block.....For Writers, June 22, 2004

By	V. Marshall (North Fork, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This little book is fantastic for those of you stumbling with the ever ready writer's block.

Jason Rekulak has provided 786 ideas within this little block to jumpstart your free wheeling imagination. Each page contains something different and friendly to kick your writing into another fresh story idea. Some pages are photographs, others are just inspirational words or statements, still other pages ask you to describe an event or situation you have endured (I feel a memoir coming on), but every page requires the same thing: a committed time frame towards your craft.

So fork over a few bucks and enjoy the rewards this little block will bring you year after year. I challenge you to knock your block off!

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to tackle that writer's block, July 10, 2002

By	Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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Oh, I love, love, love this little "Writer's Block" book. Yes, it is gimmicky: it is a 3"x3x4" BLOCK (get it?) of 672 thick pages. They aren't numbered and there is no table of contents. That's by design. The author, Jason Rekulak intends for you to use these little exercises almost at random. I found I was very stimulated by flipping through the pages-- I started writing the exercise in my head almost as soon as I had read it. The assignments make you focus your mind with great clarity on a single point.

Here's an example of one of the exercises: "There are 30,000 Americans who drink more than 10 cups of coffee per day. Write a story about one of them." I think the author's name makes a 673rd bonus exercise that I am adding here: "Write a science fiction story with an alien creature named Rekulak." (Sorry, Jason, but you got my imagination going!)

Some of the assignments are geared to creative or fictional writing and others towards reportage or memoir. I love that--it's a bit like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. Since the pages aren't numbered, and the thickness of the book makes it hard to spread open, I use Post-It(tm) flags to mark any I think I want to go back to. But it's probably better to use the book like that box of chocolates and just take the vanilla cream along with the toffee that sticks to your dental work. If you do one of these every day, in two years, who knows what you will be writing? I intend to find out.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile purchase for writers, April 26, 2004

By	H. Grove "owling6683" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Jason Rekulak's "The Writer's Block" is a memorable item--it's nearly a perfect cube, 3 inches on a side, containing hundreds of pages meant to get you writing when you're feeling stuck. It includes three types of content: "Spark words" pair a single word or phrase with a photograph. Many are meant to be ambiguous or controversial; others are simply meant to be challenging, interesting, or unusual. "Writing topics" provide a brief discussion of some issue in writing, usually relating it to various published and well-known writers. "Writing challenges" give you short assignments--exercises you can play with and try out.

The sheer volume of photos, words, exercises, and writing suggestions is astonishing! Beyond that, however, I'd call this book very good, but not amazing. The spark words are interesting; the photos didn't wow me quite as much, however. Many of them had that excessively posed look to them; most of them seemed to illustrate the most stereotypical or expected aspect of the spark word rather than leading the reader to new ideas.

The three different types of content are scattered nicely throughout, making it quite easy, if you're looking specifically for a spark word or challenge, to find one no matter what page you open up to. Certainly you'll be able to make use of this little block for a long time to come without running out of material.

Also, while the "writer's block" cube is a cute gimmick, it does have a downside. When I first opened it I found the pages very stiff and difficult to open all the way. Once I'd played around with it for a short while the binding started to separate from the pages even though I handled it very carefully. Perhaps it would have been better to sell these as cards in a memo cube. That way there'd be no worry about a binding falling apart, and it would even be easy to sell later bunches of cards to supplement the stack.

All in all, a worthwhile purchase for any writer. How could you not enjoy having that many words, photos, exercises, and suggestions to play with? Just go easy on your little cube's binding, and try not to let the photos trap you into thinking about the spark words in expected ways.