Weaponizing Words: The Magpie’s Cure for Scribbler's Block

I just watched a YouTube vid about Ray Bradbury being a literary magpie. Every morning, he'd jot down random nouns — "circus," "carnival," "carousel," "mirror maze" — scribbling whatever felt interesting in that moment. He wasn't hunting for plot or trying to construct narrative architecture. Just collecting shiny verbal objects.

Days or weeks down the road, Bradbury would rifle through his word collections like a kid looking for the right Lego. One noun would click, sparking his imagination. Something Wicked This Way Comes grew out of his circus/carnival/carousel pile. The Martian Chronicles emerged from other scattered word fragments in his hoard.

Bradbury was bypassing logic and letting emotional associations flow. Instead of forcing connections, he loaded his subconscious with interesting words and trusted it to connect the dots when he wasn't looking.

Zach Cregger approached scribbling Weapons in a similar style. He started with zero outline and let the screenplay reveal itself line by line. "I had no idea what the story was going to be," he said. "I literally went line by line." Only after seventy pages did he step back to map out an ending. He discovered the story through the act of writing, not pre-planning.

One of my fave authors, the OG Michael Moorcock, used similar tricks when cranking out pulp adventure novels in a matter of days, proving that a list of random nouns can be just as powerful as a detailed outline. It leaves room for your brain to surprise you.

The most successful TV serials I scribbled were launched with limited planning. We’d have vague ideas of where the story might go, but we left ourselves room for imagination and improv.

If you’re having trouble getting started on your next opus, collect first, connect later. Every noun you write down is like a mysterious hatch to the narrative unknown. You never know what opening it will reveal. And if you’re surprised, the audience will be too.