Writing Ideas For Those With Writer’s Block

When I’m stuck in a rut and don’t know what to write, I have some easy backup ideas for inspiration and I’m going to share them with you and perhaps you will  get some ideas for your blog or writing when your stuck. You can then ponder these ideas  while…

• Washing Dishes at work or at home.
• Cutting Carrots at work or at home.
• In the Shower as you relax in the refreshing hot water and silence so you can think your thoughts.
• In the Car as you drive back and forth from work.
• In Front of the Blessed Sacrament as you sit with just you and Jesus.
• While your spouse is talking to you as you get distracted and really want to write that blog post.

Write About What You Know

I write alot about writing. I write alot about why I can’t write as much as I would like and the troubles that go with writing. I know alot about my weaknesses and I share my insights with others. This post is an example of that.

Write About A Historical Event

For Example lets take August 25 (my wife’s birthday).  Here are some examples of interesting things that happen on that day (some info taken from Wikipedia).

• 1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers. Historic astronomy can’t go wrong.
• 1814 – War of 1812: On the second day of the Burning of Washington, British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and other public buildings. An important day in our nations history.
• 1823 – American fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear while on an expedition in South Dakota. This was made into two feature-length films: Man in the Wilderness (1971) and The Revenant (2015). Such a grizzly story to tell.

• 1835 – The first Great Moon Hoax article is published in The New York Sun, announcing the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. I doubt Galileo saw this with the telescope.
• 1905 –Saint  Faustina Kowalska (August 25, 1905 –  October 5, 1938) is born.  had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy, therefore she is sometimes called the “secretary” of Divine Mercy. World War II was right around the corner and the world was ready for mercy. She lived at the same time as St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. John Paul II. And JPII canonized them both.
• 1914 – World War I: a century after Library of Congress was torched The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost. Libraries being set on fire was a big thing on August 25.
• 1939 – Ireland and Irish history is always worth writing about. On this date The Irish Republican Army carries out the 1939 Coventry bombing in which five civilians were killed.
• 1958 – The world’s first publicly marketed instant noodles, Chikin Ramen, are introduced by Taiwanese–Japanese businessman Momofuku Ando. A great day for food lovers everywhere.
• 2025 –Library of Congress acquires “Wizard of Oz” artifacts : NPR
• 2025- From Vatican City to the city that never sleeps: Former papal chef opens New York City restaurant | Catholic News Agency

I suppose you could do food reviews as well.

Write About the Scripture Readings of the Day

It might be very easy to through the scripture readings for the Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time on that day and offer some commentary.

When remembering my wife and her twin sister on her birthday.

We give thanks to God always for all of you,
remembering you in our prayers,
unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love
and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ,
before our God and Father,
knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen.
1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

When commenting on the armies doing bad things.

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.
You do not enter yourselves,
nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
-Matthew 23:13

And you can even mention the Saint of the day which on August 25th is St. Louis IX of France

Share a Public Domain Text

Public Domain texts are out of copyright. They are free to use and share with no infringement of Copyright. And some are just ripe with great writing you might want to share with others.

   “Let us not, therefore, read for amusement, as the children do, neither for information, as do those who are avaricious for facts alone. No, let us read to live! And by so doing make for ourselves an atmosphere of all great thoughts, a companionship of all the noblest minds.”—MONTAIGNE.

This, after all the passage of centuries, carries with it the gist of the whole matter; reading that does not enter into living is as dead as unrelated facts, as demoralizing as unremitting amusement; and it is this reading to live which we covet for our young people.

The question is how to procure it. Our children have very little time to devote to good literature. Facts are purveyed them abundantly—superabundantly—at school, and amusement they take good care to secure without assistance; but the living interest that shall create “an atmosphere of all great thoughts” and make a “companionship of all the noblest minds,” a matter of daily living, is too often wholly unknown to them. The teacher may lend it, often does; some children, rare and delicate of perception, keenly artistic, sensitively fine, may possess it in themselves, but these cases are exceptional; as a rule this source of noble incentive and lofty pleasure lies as much outside the lives of our young people as China or the wilds of Africa.

Children and Books
Mary Tappan Wright, (December 14,1851–August 25, 1916)

She was born in Steubenville Ohio where I went to graduate school at Franciscan University and died in Cambridge Massachusetts in the same state I was born in. She also died on August 25, the main historic date talked about in this essay.

Write About Your Favorite Books, Movies, or Music

Write about a selection of favorite books, movies or music giving examples of each or write about a singler book, movie, or music. Expand upon why you like them and why they should read, watch or listen to them. Pick a category to narrow things down. Let’s pick the year my wife and twin sister were born as an example. 1974.

In 1974 the world saw a shift in the entertainment world. In Television an era of comedy came to an end.

March 18 –CBS‘s cancellation of Here’s Lucy marks the end of the television reign of Lucille Ball, which lasted 23 consecutive years beginning with the 1951 premiere of I Love Lucy.

But while Lucy walked out the door, several others entered.

Mel Brooks doubled down on his comedy releasing Blazing Saddles on Feb 7 and Young Frankenstein on December 15.

March 31 – Steven Spielberg  made  his theatrical debut with The Sugarland Express a year before Spielberg gave us the blockbuster summer movie season starting with Jaws.

April 5 – Carrie, the debut novel by Stephen King, is published, beginning the era of one of the most successful authors of the 20th century and giving horror a prominent place in our culture not too long after The Exorcist (1973) scared the snot out of movie goers.

It was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on Carlin Street in the town of Chamberlain on August 17th.

April 6 – Swedish pop group ABBA‘s song “Waterloo” wins the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, England, UK. launching the music phenonium group to a legendary carrier in music.

April 16 – As Abba’s songs are added to the great jukebox of culture, the legendary music group Queen plays their first North American concert, opening for Mott the Hoople in Denver, Colorado.

Here is an example of what you can do with talking about a year of life.

Share Writings You Like

A lot of writers like to share what writers annoy them and how they have it all wrong. Perhaps write about a writer you actually like or even find something good in a writer you don’t like and share that.

The diversity of thought within Catholic teaching, like variety within the strictures of sonnets,  is one of its most beautiful features. It is nevertheless important to listen, as much as we can, to a broad chorus of Catholic thinkers. I have found great consolation in the fact that someone holier and smarter than myself has likely asked my questions already; my job is to find them and to listen, and then to make as many people as possible read block quotations about it.
Sharon Kabel , OSB vs. UFO: Stanley Jaki and the Theology of Aliens (June 16, 2021)- OnePeterFive

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By embracing the Catholic principle of “care for our common home,” articulated by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’, rural initiatives challenge the idea that small-town faith communities are indifferent to environmental justice and invite the entire church to recognize that care for creation is not merely an urban or academic concern, but a lived reality for farm families and reservation communities.

Catholic Rural Life, founded in 1923, promotes sustainable farming, agrarian spirituality and community solidarity. The group’s chapters across the country celebrate “Blessings of Seeds and Fields,” honor St. Isidore the Farmer and encourage parishes to see their land as a locus for ecological witness.

Fredrick Ssesanga Rural Catholics can help the whole church appreciate land as a gift from God  (August 25, 2025)@ National Catholic Reporter

Done in chiaroscuro style, the play on light and darkness allows two figures to step out of the darkness: the saint and the priest giving him Holy Communion. The saint kneels to receive Communion, dressed in cassock (without surplice) and a stole crossed at the breast (signifying his priestly rank). The one human marker distinguishing the saint is the red pillow on which he kneels. He is already an old man (he died at 92), as is evident from his face and grey beard, though both radiate an inner peace. The priest, vested for Mass, communicates the saint.
John Grondelski How St. Joseph Calasanz Taught the Forgotten Children of Rome (August 25, 2025) National Catholic Register

Write About a Personal Event

Some of this blog post itself was personal. Choosing to include the dates August 25 and the year 1974 are all connected to my wife Kristin and her twin sister Kathleen as that is the dates of their birthday.

Remembering The Kristins And Kathleens In The World (August 25, 2025)

It was on a Sunday a day before Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator, military officer and activist who made the first solo nonstop trans-Atlantic flight in 1927, died of lymphatic cancer at the age of 72. It is always interesting to see what happens at the same time other stuff happens.

Kristin occasionally submits something to this blog but is often too tired to do write. It doesn’t stop us from going on adventures though. We recently experienced  the Van Gogh Immersion Experience being dipped into his world of color and art.

This makes me want to dive into more color by going to the Claude Monet Immersive Experience. We plan on traveling to Vermont to visit von Trapp Family Lodge  and take some tours and learn about the family from Kirstin’s favorite movie  The Sound of Music . Will take a history tour and a maple sugaring tour and then tour Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory near by. These are the good things in our society that reflect history, culture and food that people delight in everyday.

Those are some of my ideas of topics and subjects that are ready for creating blog posts or more that I use when stuck on an things to write about. Will they get you lots of clicks and likes and commentary? That’s a different post for another day and may you have a good one.