Credit: By Rennett Stowe on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Even the best journalists sometimes get writer's block. The late New York Times columnist David Carr's advice was to "keep typing until it turns into writing".
Another approach, outlined here on Atlantic Public Media's Transom.org, advises doing a "barf draft" using a mobile phone.
Despite the name, this does not involve lubricating your creative muscles with copious amounts of alcohol.
Instead, HowSound podcast host Rob Rosenthal suggests saying your story out loud as though describing it to a friend, recording it on your iPhone, transcribing it and then adding in quotes and edits.
Granted this approach is going to be too time-consuming for some journalists, but for features or podcast scripts it might offer your copy a more natural lilt.
And at the very least it will help you to banish the block and get some words down.
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