It’s easy to write when you know what story you want to tell.

When I teach writing, whether creative or business, at some point I always insert this truism: Writing is easy. Thinking is hard.

Solution: Don’t write and think at the same time.

I’m currently not writing — this may confuse you, as you’re reading, and of course I write every day at work — but I feel I’m not writing. By which I mean I’m not writing to a purpose, to a goal.

I don’t have a story to tell.

Unfortunately, I might also not be thinking. I might have lost the plot completely.

Repeat: It’s easy to write when you have a story to tell.

When you don’t have a story — when you can’t tell what the story is — or you can’t tell the story you need to tell — well.

You don’t write. At best, you meander and practice forming sentences, maybe, on a less bad day, paragraphs.

At worst, you stare out a window and cry.

(Hey, at least you have a window.)

Creative writing practice is about showing up to practice, even when you don’t feel creative, even when you don’t want to do the work.

It’s about showing up.

I know this.

I start the day with morning pages. I pen the occasional post or vignette. (Stress on occasional.)

I think about the 6 or 7 manuscripts on my computer in various stages of not-done.

I try to remember the woman whose main complaint in life was that she did not have time to write — but wrote anyway. Copiously.

I look at the woman who has the time… and isn’t.

I try not to hate her.

Sentences.

Paragraphs.

Posts.

Practice.

Advice to self: Find the story you are committed to finishing.

Ok, just pick one. Any one. Make it random. Come on.

Pick one. Start a new one? Do something.

I don’t. And I complain about it in my morning pages.

I’m starting to question if I will ever again — start, finish. I’ve never been in this place as a writer.

I need… an intervention? To re-read The Artist’s Way? Break all the routines?

I don’t know.

In the meantime — in the meantime, I practice. Three long hand pages. Words into sentences into paragraphs.

Practice.

The story will come.

Probably.

xoxo

Jane