Like many of you, I follow certain authors on Facebook where insights into their personalities, current works, and nuggets of wisdom are available. Gregory Maguire, who is known as the prolific author of Wicked and its sibling novels, musicals, and films related to Oz among other fables, posted the following on June 23, 2023 which you may find enlightening. With Gregory’s permission, his passage follows.
June 23, 2023, Gregory Maguire on Facebook
I don’t speak in public much any more, but I was on a panel last week where the moderator asked something about how to overcome writer’s block. I have rarely suffered from writer’s block, not since I learned how to write block letters and refused to relinquish the family pencil. But I am taking a hiatus from fiction writing now, for the first time in about 64 years, to see how it feels not to do it, and to see what the recovery rate of the inspiration well is. (Doing so quite peaceably and even with some relief, to be sure.) Which is to say I think it is Writer’s Block and not Engine Failure. Still, here is how I responded, remembering what I was used to saying when kids or new writers might pose me the question:
1) Take a walk. Don’t worry about thinking about your messy and recalcitrant text, and why it won’t move any more. The act of physical movement unblocks the mind without your having to put any mental effort into it.
2) Note your dreams; these are keys and clues to what concerns you.
3) Read poetry, the more obscure the better. (Reams of Wallace Stevens in my case.) Poetry does to your mind what exercise does to your body. It wakes it up. It slaps it around, it hurts–and it revivifies. The more knotty and impenetrable, the more nutritive value to the language centers of the brain.
A fourth notion that only occurs to me now, but a practice I have followed if I begin to get punky or lose confidence:
4) Return to your heroes and champions, your masters. For me, Sendak, Forster, Emily Dickinson, they have never failed me, ever. Each of them reminds me that the best work begins in caring passionately, with embarrassing portions of passion really: begins in being brave enough to show passion for what one believes (or what one doubts) and would like to try to share.
Thus endeth the lesson. Cider and doughnuts in the Community Room. No smoking in the handicapped lavatories, kids!
Additional Gregory Maguire links:
Innocence and Experience: Essays and Conversations on Children’s Literature (edited by Gregory Maguire and Barbara Harrison) (1987) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37361.Innocence_and_Experience
Wicked (the movie – available November, 2024)
More About Writers Block:
7 Ways to Avoid Writers Block Perdue
WRITERS' RUMPUS 
Great post! Thank you for sharing, Joyce!
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OMG, I love this! What great advice. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. The one about returning to your heroes really tugged at me. I’ve never heard or seen that one before, but it’s incredibly powerful.
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Thanks for sharing this, Joyce! Great reminders about poetry, walks, and masters. Fun to hear what Gregory is thinking these days. I remember when he was the keynote for a New England SCBWI conference years ago. 🙂
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Hi Marcia. Thank you for reading. There may be more here from him in the future. I did not attend that conference, but took two week-long intensive children’s book workshops many years ago that Gregory was involved in – one sited at Harvard, the other at MIT. He strummed his guitar, unifying all those in attendance.
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Oh, those sound like very special workshops!
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Thank you for sharing these! This post inspires me to read more poetry!
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Janet, poetry is a wonder. Good for you!
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Hi Hilary. That is an excellent addition to the list. Walking stimulates the brain, for sure.
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So helpful! Thank you!
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My pleasure, Angie. Gregory Maguire is an excellent source of inspiration on many levels.
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These are excellent tips, Joyce. I miraculously figure things out on my walks!
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