Tackling Writer’s Block And A ‘Slimy Clay’ First Draft

On “City Lights,” she continues her “Writer to Reader” series with a contemplation of writer’s block, which she says is a myth, and confesses that “I hate writing. I love having written.”

That line is attributed to Dorothy Parker, and it was Ernest Hemingway who bluntly pointed out that “the first draft of anything is s***.”

Jackson opted for a more colorful, localized description that resonates right now, in the sweltering late summer.

“It’s Georgia and it’s August, and you go out to a creek in the filthy humidity and you dig slimy clay out of a disgusting trash-coated creek bank,” she said.

It’s nasty and sometimes smelly, but “if you don’t get the clay, you will never ever make anything. So you have to go out there and do it.”

Jackson also suggests an online tool, Write or Die, for writers who need to make themselves knock out a certain number of words every day.

“Once you’ve done it, you have some clay,” she said.