Sleight of hand

If words are reluctant to appear on the page when you sit down to write, why not try switching pens?

It's a simple trick, an easy way to encourage words (and thoughts) to keep flowing. 

You might call it an illusion, a magician's sleight of hand, but when you find yourself stuck it's a way that might help you draw new words from the mysterious source from which all words flow. 

It's what I do, switching to one of the pens that I keep ready on my desk.  

Over the years I've collected dozens of pens. I fill them with different colored inks--violet, blue, black, ama-iro, kon-peki (both different shades of blue), sepia, and more--and, depending on my mood, I select a pen with the color ink that suits my mood that morning. 

Each pen's barrel is a different size, shape, weight, and color. Some of the pens are made in Japan. Others are made in Germany, Britain, and here in the United States. Some have fine point nibs, others medium, or extra-fine. Some are sharp-edged, others rounded. 

But the pens share something in common. The moment I hold one of the pens in my hand, I feel as if I'm holding a magic wand that's filled with magic ink. And as soon as I begin writing with it, I can feel the pen weave its magic spell onto the page, helping me draw words out of silence. 

Each pen leads me down a different path into a sea of words. 

Words that heal my heart. Words that make me smile. Words that connect me to those I love. Words that help me understand the world. Words that link me to the divine source of words. Words that form stories, create poems. Words, words, words...

Some days there are so many words that I feel like I'm swimming in words. But other days, staring at a blank page, I can feel as if I'm stranded in a desert without a drop of water within reach. 

That's when switching to a different pen can help me overcome the silence, poke through the resistance, leap over reluctance, and swim past fear. 

Somehow holding a different pen in my hand can banish the dread of emptiness that I feel when I look at a blank page.

Just seeing the pens lifts my heart. 

And just holding one of the pens gives me the courage to begin, to step into the unknown, and to begin swimming. 

Each pen gives me hope that I might discover something that I've never seen before. And questions begin to bubble up: What will I learn today? What will I find that's been hidden for years? What will this pen bring to the surface?

Of course, there are no guarantees that switching pens will help words appear on the page or that a new pen will help you find what you need on the page. 

But it's always worth a try.

So when words are reluctant to appear, why not try switching to another pen... and see if it might help you discover what you need to find this morning... just as switching to another pen helped me.