Does this sound familiar? It’s a poem called, “There’s a Hole in My Side Walk” by Portia Nelson:

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”

We’ve all been there, haven’t way? Made a mistake and then kept on making the same mistake, mainly out of habit. But just as this habit-driven walker finally finds another way, so can we.

If we’re struggling with a plot, instead of reworking the same chunks of it and trying to make them finally fit together, we can come up with a new angle and reenergize our structure. Or, if we have a character who seems pale and lackluster, instead of creating more of the same, we can give him or her a distinctive tic—and suddenly there’s a full-souled person on the page.

We’re creatives, after all. Let’s create something new!

So let’s heed the lesson of the hole—let’s wake up sooner to the different paths open to us more quickly and leave the hole behind. Write on!

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