For an avid golfer like my friend of over 60 years, Mike Schepp, and my sister, Joanie, there is a word never to be spoken, because the idea is that if spoken, it would one way or another in their games. This word, “shank”, describes hitting the ball at the innermost part of the clubface, causing it to spring sideways a short distance.

Now, for a writer, there’s also a term that’s considered verboten to not encourage them to sneak in the process, “writer’s block.”

But, for me, the term comes to mind whenever I’m at the kitchen sink washing a few dishes. Although I have a dishwasher, I haven’t put the first dish in it since the three ladies who once lived with me left to seek their fortunes, two as expected, and one, not so much, and it had been a very long time from. A plate, a glass, a knife and a fork, I can wash and dry in less than three minutes.

As for why I think about writer’s block when I’m at the sink, I can thank Lady Jane’s daughter, Liz, for that. During one of her pleasant stays, she bought me the trinket that now sits on the ledge. The article is a real bar of soap, and on the label it says: “Soap for Writer’s Block… Zaps implausible plots, eliminates derivative work, better for your liver.”

The reference to the soap being better for your liver isn’t all that surprising considering the soap is made by the Whiskey River Soap Company. As for an obstacle that inhabits fluent writing, well, it’s a sometimes quite daunting obstacle, both for beginning writers like the ones I once taught and also for writers who’ve been scribbling for a time.

The first item in that tag, “skip implausible plots,” really has more to do with fiction writers. For me and the type of writing I’ve done, I really don’t need to invent plots. The two books I have written are biographies.

The first concerns now-retired local entrepreneur Harold Breidenbach and his remarkable journey through three different children’s homes after he and his sister Judy were removed from a home environment deemed unsuitable and became wards of the Probate Division. and Juveniles of Hardin County Courts.

As for the second book, the life journey I have chronicled is that of College Football Hall of Fame coach Dick Strahm. The former University of Findlay coach, whose teams have won four NAIA national championships, between two of the country’s most successful college football programs, battled and beat cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

These men provided me with a lot of material, so that the linear storylines moved forward without me having to sit scratching my noggin while trying to figure out a believable plot that would suspend the reader’s disbelief.

When it comes to the magazine and newspaper work I’ve done over the years, I know what I want to say on a topic before I start. And, if I tell a story, either mine or someone else’s, I know in advance how it ends. So I really don’t care one bit about implausible plots. As far as topics to cover and stories to tell, well, I’ve always found the world to be full of them.

During my undergraduate studies at the University of Miami, I took a few short story courses and really struggled. Truth be told, I didn’t produce any that I thought were Guardians. That’s why I have the greatest respect for fiction writers like Don Bruns, who has made a name for himself in the detective genre.

As for this derivative work that the soap bar is supposed to eliminate, that also wouldn’t apply to the type of writing I do since I’m not translating another writer’s work for copyright.

In an article titled “Is it real? 25 Famous Writers on Writer’s Block”, the author of the article, Emily Temple, refers to Writer’s Block as “the dreaded, insidious and much mythologized affliction”. I found the 2018 article very interesting, reading the thoughts of contemporary writers like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou and great writers of long ago like Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway.

It was Hemingway who offered me the most relevant advice because of its simplicity. As for how to avoid blockages, he said: “The best way is always to stop when you’re good and when you know what’s going to happen next. If you do this every day, you will never get stuck.

And that’s how this column was completed, in four different sessions during my best writing time of the day, which is between five and seven in the morning before I leave for work. The process started with lifting that bar of soap from the threshold, examining the label, and grabbing that first sheet of paper, and I never stopped not knowing what my next paragraph was going to be.

The biographies “Home Kid”, 2006, and “Just Call Me Coach”, 2008, were written by John Grindrod.

John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, freelance writer and editor, and author of two books. Join it at [email protected]