If you are a writer chances are good that the most frequent question you are asked (other than “How do you make a living?”) is: “What do you do about writer’s block?”
I don’t have an answer for this because frankly I’ve never had the experience. This admission doesn’t make me better than those who do suffer from WB and I freely admit to having lots of faults both literary and beyond. (I can’t spell; I have vicious table manners…)
But confronted by a blank page or an empty screen I leap into the unknown like the guy who dives into strange bodies of water even though he doesn’t know how deep they are.
James Wright once said something to the effect that you have to be willing to be a bit of a dummy to be a poet.
I should say here just in case any attorneys are reading this that I do not advocate or recommend diving into unknown bodies of water without first checking to see how deep they are. Any inference that a person should risk a C-4 fracture by jumping off a cliff is subject to seven kinds of ambiguity and is consequently subordinated to the vagaries of college English departments. May the gods be gentle with you.
I went to Paris this morning. The streets were still wet.
A very old priest was walking along the liminal sidewalk with a pet goose by his side.
The goose was looking straight ahead and the old judge was looking at the ground.
Ah, I thought. Justice may be blind but it’s also a forethoughtful gander.
I was there for only a moment.
Now I’m back in Iowa where the snow is covering my whole town.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
Oh, I love that, Steve!
Though I am occasionally plagued by WB, it disappears when I remind myself that short trips to those faraway, farawhen and farahow places — Paris, Romania, Ireland before St. Patrick — are why I love being a writer and an artist. This was my first talent — the first magic I discovered in myself, and with luck it will be the last to go. My imagination requires no passports, and there no restrictions on it other than those I impose myself, voluntarily or otherwise.
That said, THANK YOU for the image of chilly, rain-washed Paris, the solemn priest/judge, and his thoughtful and very focused goose. I believe I saw a bicycle shushhh by, spraying puddle-water, too. I’m glad you enjoyed the trip and I’m delighted you took us along for a glimpse.
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To paraphrase somebody in the bible, you walk by faith and not by sight. And you trust that something will happen on the page.
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