Let’s say you’re between writing projects or you are clueless as to what your next one will be. Rather than roll yourself into a beach ball of bewilderment, here’s what you do: do something else.

Learn to make scones. Experiment with watercolors. Try a new type of yoga (goats optional). Throw your first pot. Pick up golf (miniature golf, for starters) or ax throwing. Read a classic you’ve somehow missed. Hike a trail. Rearrange a room. Adopt a ferret. Plant veggies. Climb your family tree. Visit a new city. Play!

In other words, devote yourself to something unrelated to your writing.

As you reorient your mind from writing mode to [FILL IN THE BLANK] mode, you give your brain a break. With time, tender new green leafy ideas will emerge while you’re cruising in your kayak or knitting another mitten.

Giving yourself permission to go on a mental vacation may sound like a coy way to slack off. But it’s not. It’s really not—IF you do it with intention. Block the time on your calendar for your mental-pause, cerebral siesta, noggin’ nap, rejuvacation or whatever you want to call it. Then, decide what you’d like to do and choose a backup activity in case your first plan goes wonky. Call it “unravel insurance.”

Oh! And be sure to keep a journal handy in case any new ideas sprout while you’re out!

Enjoy, my little strawberry parfaits! And send me a postcard (or a message), won’t you?

Change your mind and the rest will follow. ~ Songwriters: Gerald Edward Levert / Denzil Delano Foster / Thomas Mcelroy