Warming up to/with Reading

So I was stuck again today. I had a lot of time on my hands, sitting in UCR's Rivera Library at around 2:30 pm. I needed to write and I made a conscious effort, after class, to claim one of the library's computers. Still, I couldn't come up with anything to write or come up with the words to write down. I was confused. How do I write something, again? I kept asking myself this question for another ten minutes.

I had to give up on trying to figure it out because it was frustrating me again (remember the snowball). So, I went on the internet. I found and read a story by Louise Erdrich called "The Reptile Garden" and was fascinated by her use of sensory details, particularly in a make-out scene where even the steel pipes were given the modesty of clothing, in the form of "powdery bandages of asbestos." Hey, I can write that, I thought, and I proceeded to write a page of my story.

Saul Bellow said that "A writer is a reader moved to emulation." Point taken. After I wrote my page, I went home and felt stuck again. I then read an essay by Janet Fitch (which I'm pulled from Writers Workshop in a Book, edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez) called "Coming to Your Senses," where she stressed about describing with the five senses. Inspired, I wrote another half page of some pretty nice description.

I have a page and half of my story right now. At least that's a start. And I'll definitely remember to read more often.