“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944; French writer, aviator, and philosopher, best known for The Little Prince. His works explore themes of human connection, imagination, and the search for meaning.)

Knife raised in the air, just a few inches or so above the kitchen counter, I stood there nearly motionless. I’d like to say that it was one of my better knives, maybe my Shun or my Wüsthof. But it wasn’t. I’d like to say that it was about to land on one of my better cutting boards, maybe my Boos or my Ironwood. But it wasn’t. And I’d like to say that I was about to execute some fancy-schmancy cut, maybe Chiffonade or Julienne. But I wasn’t.

I was just standing there with ordinary carrots, celery, and onions arranged on an ordinary cutting board as I minced them with my ordinary paring knife for an ordinary pasta sauce.

But as I stood there, something extraordinary happened in that ordinary moment.

Just as my knife was coming down, Billy Collins’ “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice'” seemed to shimmer across the blade. Maybe that was to be expected. I love Billy Collins’ poetry, and, after all, there I stood chopping, and in Collins’ poem, there he stands chopping parsley and dicing onions.

But get this. As he wields his knife, he’s not at all concerned about how or why, in the nursery rhyme—the supposed thrust of his bluesy poetic mirepoix—the mice managed to be in the direct path of the farmer’s wife’s blade. Of course, he’s not. We all know how that story ends. But at that moment, standing in my own kitchen, I had no idea how mine would.

But Collins does something I’ve never seen anyone else do. Instead of focusing on how the mice lost their tails, which we know already, he sets up his own minor tragedy filled with blues and tears by raising questions about their blindness:

Was it congenital?

Was it a common accident?

Did each come to blindness separately,

How did they manage to find one another?

After posing those weighty questions–ones that I dare say most of us have never even vaguely contemplated–Collins gets emotional as he thinks about the mice without eyes and without tails running through moist grass or slipping around a baseboard corner.

Actually, he’s brought to tears, but don’t worry. He has two good covers:

By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for wet stinging,
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard’s
mournful trumpet on “Blue Moon,”
which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.

There you have it. Just as the end of Collins’ poem trailed across the blade, my knife landed once more on the veggies, and I remembered what I had been thinking before Billy Collins had the nerve to drag the farmer’s wife’s mice and Art Blakey’s music into my kitchen uninvited.

I was recalling Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, best known for her A Humble Romance and Other Stories as well as A New England Nun and Other Stories. At the start of her acclaimed literary career that spanned nearly a half century, she commented:

I wonder if there is such a thing as working a vein so long that the gold ceases to be gold. There is no use in worrying, for another vein might open.

Despite her concerns, her literary canon powerfully demonstrates that more than one gold vein opened for her. She went on to write 3 plays, 14 novels, 3 volumes of poetry, 22 volumes of short stories, over 50 uncollected short stories and prose essays, and 1 motion picture play.

Freeman’s literary output never ceases to amaze me. As soon as her fears and successes bubbled up in my mind, it seemed that every time I lifted my knife to continue chopping, I thought of other writers and their fears about running out of ideas.

As a writer myself, and especially as a former Creative Writing professor, I’ve always paid attention to the ways writers wrestle with their fears. I always managed to sprinkle writers’ fears and their successes throughout my classes, and these days, I try sprinkling the same reminders throughout my own days of doubt.

What about Stephen King, one of the most prolific and celebrated writers of our time, who has openly feared creative depletion? He once admitted:

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve already written my best book. And if I have, I’m all done.”

But King’s fears didn’t stop him. He continued to write, producing novels across multiple decades, from Misery to The Green Mile, 11/22/63, and Billy Summers, proving that the well of creativity runs deeper than we sometimes believe.

What about Margaret Atwood, best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, who has openly acknowledged her anxiety about running out of ideas? She once said:

“I live in fear of running out of ideas. I tell my subconscious to keep the pipeline full.”

But Atwood’s fears didn’t stop her. She has continued to produce groundbreaking fiction, essays, and poetry well into her later years, including The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize decades after her first major successes.

What about Isaac Asimov, the visionary mind behind Foundation and I, Robot, who, despite his prolific output, still feared creative emptiness? He once asked:

“What if suddenly I can’t think of anything? What if the words stop coming?”

But Asimov’s fears didn’t stop him. He went on to publish over 500 books across multiple genres—science fiction, history, and even chemistry—proving that creativity is not finite but ever-expanding.

What about Louisa May Alcott, best known for Little Women, who felt the pressure of creative exhaustion, particularly because she wrote at a relentless pace to support her family? She once confessed in her journal:

“I can only wander and wait, wishing I could rush into a new book with the old eagerness.”

But Alcott’s fears didn’t stop her. Despite her anxieties, she went on to write Little Men and Jo’s Boys, along with numerous other novels, short stories, and essays that secured her place in literary history.

What about Neil Gaiman, the imaginative force behind American Gods and Coraline, who has openly admitted that the idea of creative depletion haunts him? He once said:

“People ask me where I get my ideas from, and I feel like they should be asking, ‘How do you keep from running out of ideas?’ Because that’s what terrifies me.”

But Gaiman’s fears didn’t stop him. He has continued crafting captivating stories across novels, graphic novels, and television, proving that creativity is a muscle that strengthens with use, not one that simply wears out.

What about Maya Angelou, the legendary poet and memoirist, who feared that one day her words might simply stop? She once admitted:

“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

But Angelou’s fears didn’t stop her. She continued to write, speak, and inspire, producing Even the Stars Look Lonesome, Letter to My Daughter, and numerous volumes of poetry that touched lives around the world.

And what about Christopher Isherwood, best known for The Berlin Stories (which inspired Cabaret), who worried about creative stagnation, especially as he aged. He once wrote:

“I kept asking myself: What am I really doing? Do I have anything left to say?”

But Isherwood’s fears didn’t stop him. He went on to write A Single Man, one of the most important gay novels of the 20th century, as well as an acclaimed series of autobiographical works well into his later years.

My reveries into literary fears and successes could have lasted forever. But just as I finished with Isherwood, I looked down at my ordinary carrots, celery, and onions arranged on an ordinary cutting board, and I realized that I had finished mincing them with my ordinary paring knife.

In that moment, I remembered that my reverie had not started with Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Billy Collins at all. It had commenced with me standing there, wondering: What would I do if I ran out of ideas? What would I do if I worked my literary vein so much that whatever little gold it might have ceased to be gold?

But I can’t worry about that right now. I have a few book titles to my own credit, with two more to be added this year. For now, I’ll continue to contemplate the ordinary truths that surround me in my ordinary world.

Who knows. Maybe one day, history will add my name to the list of writers who feared running out of ideas—but never actually did.