My name is Joani and this is my first blog.

I have written hundreds of columns, essays, magazine articles, and am no stranger to writer’s block.

But for some reason, I have been afraid of my very own blog and it’s probably because I am technically challenged.

Thanks to some VERY patient friends, here I am … up and running, sort of.

No more excuses.

I am all in favor of Walt Whitman’s advice, “I loafe at my ease…observing a blade of summer grass.”

I was laid off recently from my weekly column with The Sun-Times Suburban Sun and that’s just what I have been up to… loafing. First of all, I have long ago been vaccinated for this condition (procrastination and loafing).

Having decided  I had the deadly “Writer’s Block” yet again, I employed some of the things that have worked in the past…

I went to my muse, Chloe, and  her advice was to walk by the river but it’s pouring rain.

Next, I began waiting for something like spontaneous combustion to happen so I would know what to write about.  It’s worked in the past.

Well, it didn’t happen, so while having coffee with my next door neighbor this morning, she said, “Write about being blocked.”

My best friend Dena has suggested Crazy Glue on my chair.

They were both right. Writers try too hard sometimes, that’s when we run into problems.  Often, I will simply begin telling a story. Have you ever heard of anyone getting stuck in the middle of a story when they are telling it?

So these are a few of the things I do when I feel blocked…

I stick my butt to my chair, and thoughts usually begin to restring themselves and then sort of hang together until an idea is revealed.

Another approach comes from daydreaming about a word or a phrase that has sparked the original idea.  Sometimes I see only a little piece of the elephant and have to go away for awhile and when returning… the elephant begins to show itself, miraculously creating a title, a beginning and now, “The End.”

All of my experiences are and have been “Grist for the Mill” in my writing life.