Although to many this is going to sound like sacrilege, I believe that sometimes the best thing a writer can do is step away from the computer. Yup, I said it. Now let the lightning strike! Ready to blaspheme a bit more? And find out what this has to do with geese

In the words of Ted Kooser, US poet Laureate, in an NPR interview.

“Ordinarily, I get up about 4:30 in the morning and I try to write till about 7:00. I've got an armchair down in the living room where I prop a cup of coffee on one arm and set my notebook on my lap. And I just sit there under the floor lamp early in the morning and work and see what happens. And nine days out of 10, nothing good comes of it at all. Maybe on the 10th day, if I'm lucky, you know, some little thing will start a poem. I feel that I'm really fortunate if, at the end of the year, after writing every day, I have a dozen poems I care about. That's plenty. I don't have great expectations for what happens in those morning sessions, but you know, if you're not there writing, it's never going to happen. My friend Roger Welsch out in Dannebrog, Nebraska, says, `You got to be there when the geese come flying in,' you know. It's just that sort of a thing.”

There’s not doubt, Mr. Kooser is brilliant writer with a dedicated practice. And while I don’t have a schedule as regimented as Mr. Kooser, I can be pretty fanatical when it comes to forcing myself to sit in that chair, tossing out crumb after crumb in hopes of coaxing those damn geese to light on the pool of my imagination. Often it pays off. Often I walk away feeling satisfied that put my time in. I might even get lucky and hammer out a chapter. Once in awhile, however, I find the best thing I can do is step away from my computer and go do something else: garden, walk, cook—especially if I’m dealing with a particularly difficult plot point, or the chapter seems dead.

Stepping away gives my subconscious mind the room it needs to take a crack at whatever issue I’m dealing with. My subconscious mind works differently than my conscious mind. It needs space, time. And it sure doesn’t want me looking over its shoulder. It’ll spit something out when it’s good and ready. I’ll be pulling oxalis from my flowerbed when it blurts out the perfect solution for a messed-up storyline. Not only will it be brilliant, it will be something my conscious mind would have never thought to consider. Of course it’s important to have a pad and paper in these moments. Those geese can fly off as fast as they can fly in. But I guess what I’m trying to say is, in my case, I just never know where they’re going to land.