In her book, Marry Your Muse, Jan Philips writes about a day at a mountain cabin when she and her partner were spending time writing. Jan’s cousins, ages 10 and 12, showed up at the door. When Jan told the girls that she and Annie were very busy writing, the girls said they understood, that they were writers, too. Jan invited the two girls in, saying they could all write for an hour till lunch, then eat and then read their work to each other. When lunch was ready, the girls were still writing their stories and did not want to stop yet. When they did finish and eat lunch, each read their work to the others. One girl wrote about “The Halloween Nightmare” and one about “The Summer I’ll Never Forget.” Both girls wrote well. Jan tells us how she and Annie clapped for the girls and all took turns pointing out the parts that made them like the stories so much. She remarks on how inspiring it was working beside two girls who wrote because they hadn’t forsaken the part of themselves that pulls out thoughts and tries them on “like clothes out of Grandma’s closet.”

One of the few things we can count on as writers is being interrupted — by others, by noises, by news, by ourselves, by weather, by accidents, by illnesses, by decisions, by dreams, by vegetables burning on the stove, or wind blowing the wires and trees down. I remember a day I was teaching in a room in a church in Tucson and all of a sudden there were bagpipers playing and marching in the courtyard beneath our window. What could we do but shift gears and write about them?

Here are a few ways you can further your writing by using the interruptions that might otherwise make you testy and annoyed:

1. List interruptions you’ve experienced recently.

2. Choose one that interests you right now.

3. Freewrite about that one as fully as you can:

• Where were you and what were you hoping to or having to get done?
• What was the interruption?
• Capture the interruption with dialog and visual details: Who, what, where, when, how.
• Did the interruption alter your work, day, plans, and perceptions? In what ways?
• What do you think about your re-done day, plan, work, and thoughts?

Now that you have warmed up to writing about what might have seemed a distraction to writing, try more exericises:

1. Concentrate on interruptions to do with other peoples’ decisions. Write about them.

2. Think about interruptions that have to do with your own thoughts and ideas. Write vignettes that show what you were doing and then the thought that came along and what you did after the thought arrived.

3. Remember how dreams have interrupted you. They can be a night dream or a fantasy of what you would like things to be like. Choose one dream and describe it in detail. Tell what happened as a consequence of thinking about this dream or pursuing it. Write about how things changed for you, about the ways you were inspired to think differently after the dream, the reasons you delved into new areas or returned to old ones you might have abandoned.

Thinking that interruptions are useful to writing helps you begin new personal essays, a book-length memoir and even develop fictional characters, if you let them do the exercises. And I’ll bet it will help you find ways to become unstuck with pieces you are already working on.