What To Do (when there's nothing to write)

There will be times when it seems there's nothing to write. I've felt that way for a week. I want to write, but nothing seems interesting enough. My plan is to post every day and work on longer projects in between, but I feel like I have nothing to say. What to do? 

My first inclination is to run away from the page and keyboard or to lose myself online. If I have nothing good to say, there's no point in writing. I want to sink into my bad mood and wait for something good to happen, but I know good things take forever to come. It's not that the world is such a bad place, quite the contrary. I've just learned that waiting is a good way to keep things from happening. That pisses me off, but it's true. 

I want to write this morning but feel I have nothing to say. I've done my Morning Pages, had coffee, taken fiber, shaved, and done twenty push-ups. I could throw in some laundry, clean my desk, or sit and type. The laundry and desk will wait while I type to change my luck. 

The oldest writing advice I know is to sit in the chair and do the work. Maybe I can open that advice up beyond just the directive. 

The reason I feel like I've nothing to say is that I don't believe my thoughts are worthy. That's mostly because I haven't thought things through. The thinking is all in my head, vague and wispy. Coming to the keyboard or the piece of paper forces me to elevate the thinking, organizing my thoughts into sentences, making paragraphs that work together. It's a kind of performance too. I'm explaining myself to an audience. As I type the first draft the audience is my skepticism. I wonder, _am I making sense? have I said this before?_ If I've said it before, I've left things unclear enough that I need a refresher. I'm not the only one in need of that refresher. I keep going. 

My butt is in the chair, but the magic is what I'm doing on the screen. I'm looking at the previous paragraph, going back to my initial thoughts, checking this sentence for sense, and hearing the next sentence coming. I can feel that I'm not done, that I haven't yet explained myself and am only partially moved by the words written so far. I have more I need to say.  

That ought to feel discouraging, but it's just the opposite. I know there's more to say not just because I remain unconvinced but because I have sentences still rolling down the conveyor belt of my mind waiting to be typed. Having written some of my thinking, I've opened the valve. More ideas are coming through that tap. 

The other thing I feel is that even when this thinking is done and I've finished the draft, there are other thoughts taking shape that I want to get down in letters and punctuation. The feeling of being stuck and unworthy is dissolving. The solvent was putting words on this page. 

None of this comes as much of a surprise. The solution to feeling unable to write is to sit and write. Of course. However, in the moment of being stuck, writing seems too uncomfortable to even begin. I can't imagine that anything good will come of it and want to run. What to do? 

Sit your butt in the chair and decide how many words to put on the screen, how many pages to fill, how long to keep writing. My plan today was for 500 words. Yesterday I set out to fill five notebook pages. Many times I set a timer for twenty minutes. A plan for quantity doesn't always result in quality, but it gets me writing and loosens up that feeling that I am terrible and unworthy. It's enough to stop me from running and start writing.

Sit in the chair. Take up the pen or open the laptop. Write and keep going. Tell the page or screen what you're thinking and make those thoughts convincing and clear to yourself. The writing won't be perfect; it doesn't need to be. You just need to keep writing. 

That's what to do. 

Beyond Unworthy

Okay, trying to wake up and figure out what to say. I don't want to complain again about my job or make wishes for the future. I haven't weighed myself yet and don't want to think about being fat or plan ways to get in shape. I'm shooting all my ideas down. This is some of what keeps me from feeling able to write. More insidious than "I have nothing to write" is feeling that every idea I have is unworthy of being written. 

What is there to do when these thoughts come? 

The answer is already on the page. I'm fourteen lines into a draft (pictured above) about feeling unworthy. Actually, it was only five lines before this idea developed from the act of writing. The practice of moving the pen, hand, and mind created a connection leading to a page about getting through feeling unworthy. I've gone into that feeling instead of away from it and proven again the power of moving the pen. 

My instinct when feeling unworthy is to run away. This leads to a lot of web surfing, nail clipping, snacking, coffee, and the occasional load of laundry. I'll do most anything to get away from not-writing. The blank page or screen is a magic mirror saying I'm the least worthy of them all. If I don't run away, I stare into the blankness, stewing in my insecurity, acting as though I'm thinking of ideas. I am thinking, but only of unworthiness, feeling too small, stupid, and self-centered to write. Running or staring turn out the same: I'm not writing and the evil editor is in charge. I'm mired in a self-pity some call writer's block. 

Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down The Bones (and others) suggests rules of writing practice, the first of which is to keep the hand moving. That rule and practice got me through feeling unworthy this morning and many time before. I wrote those unworthy things as the first lines of Morning Pages. I began knowing two things: I would absolutely fill three pages and I would keep my hand moving. That's enough. 

In writing practice there's no need for a worthy idea prior to beginning, no need to feel worthy. There are always more ideas in my head than I could ever write, so it's no lack of ideas stopping the writing. What stops me is feeling unworthy to begin. If I get my hand moving and keep it moving as I did here, I'm already writing, putting the lie to the feeling I'm unworthy to write. 

This works even if I begin "I have nothing to write." Having written that, I've put something on the page and a follow up thought is in the hopper: "At least, I have nothing good to write. I'm wishing I didn't have to go to my job and wondering if I can call in sick." There's three sentences leading me to write why my job is bad, if I can call in sick, or maybe the ethics of a sick day when I feel fine. Three sentences have proven I have things to write and more sentences rush toward the page. 

I'm halfway through page three of the first draft. It required only the movement of my hand and faith in the practice. This may seem like hokum or hokus-pokus. There is some sleight of hand at work here. I've kept the hand moving, distracting the evil editor enough that my hand takes over the writing process. I've gotten to work despite feeling unworthy. Moving my hand is less a trick than a practice in which I've come to believe. It gets me to good work. 

I began feeling unworthy and wrote "Okay, trying to wake up and figure out what to say." I kept my hand moving and filled three pages. It was good enough to type, revise, and publish. Just look what happened. 

A Writing Life

Reading Ursula K. Le Guin's No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters I got thinking she had a pretty good writing life. She made enough money to live a comfortable life because of writing. What do I want out of a writing life? And what do you want from your creative life?

I don't expect to write a best seller. Is that just doubt talking? Am I daring myself? No and no. I'm not looking for an attaboy here. I don't need to be told that I can be anything I want to be. Please no. 

What then do I want? I want to keep writing, have more people read what I write, and become a better, more interesting writer. 

If there's money to be made from it, fine. I don't need much. If I earned what I make teaching, that would be plenty. Wanting more would be greedy. But I'm not even sure I want to make money from writing. It might take something out of it and ruin the whole enterprise. Probably not, but pursuing money likely would. 

I wonder how people survive giant first books. Harper Lee never wrote again,  on purpose. Andy Weir killed with _The Martian_ but the blurb on his second book has me shaking my head no. Big books out of the gate seem dangerous. Big books in general can do harm. How much Anne Lamott have I read beyond _Bird By Bird_? Those books can make a writer wealthy, but I can imagine myself buying a Tesla then not being able to afford insurance because I had run dry. 

That said, if anyone reading this wants to make a blockbuster movie or book out of my stuff, I'll risk it. I really do want a Tesla. 

Really though, I'm not looking to make a bundle. I have income enough for living and saving. To wish for much insults all I have and those who have less. Besides, I've got writing which, cheesy as it might sound, is worth quite a lot to me. I would just as soon make writing as make money. Lucky for me, I get to do both, though not in one fell swoop. I can accept that. 

I just want to be good at this craft and there I have a lot to learn. If I keep writing and learning, I'll find a wider audience. I'm curious what that will feel like, what effects it will have on me. My guess is that I'll need to grow into any audience I earn. 

This year I started a web site and post to it most every day. My weekly newsletter lets people know what I'm writing, thinking, reading, and listening to each week. I do this while holding down a job or two and that has me feeling compassion for everyone who has done this sort of thing before me. With the support of my family and the hours of my jobs, I have it easy. If you catch me complaining, show me the back of your hand. 

What comes next? I don't know, but I'm curious and willing to push. Not needing this to make money gives me all sorts of freedom to see what else I can make of it and what it can make of me. 

What do I want from a writing life? I want to see what comes next and what I can create. I want to keep on writing. So long as I can do that, I'm living the good life. 

Morning Pages: Why & How

I begin writing at 9:15 in the morning, about four hours later than usual, but in every other way I'm right on schedule. Morning Pages don't follow clock time but are synced to when my morning begins. I get out of bed, use the bathroom, come down to the basement nook with coffee, turn the heater on, plug my phone into the speakers, and start the music. I date and number pages one, two, three, take a sip of coffee, and write the first words. I write in no great hurry, just fast enough to keep ideas coming and be surprised. 

There's only one audience for these pages; it's me as I write them. I don't share them and rarely look back myself. Sometimes they come out as drafts of pieces (such as these), but that's not the plan. Writing for myself with permission to do whatever with the pages when I'm done encourages me to go deep into places I might not go with someone looking over my shoulder. It shows me that the depths aren't always dark and gives me more courage in public. 

Morning Pages have an element of therapy for me. The time is about an hour and I focus on my needs and thoughts as an essayist and poet should. It used to bother me to do therapy instead of producing finished work, but it's not a choice of one or the other. The practice of writing three morning pages fuels my writing even though it seldom leads directly to published pieces. 

Like meditation it's a daily practice that I don't believe it would work if it was sporadic. For reasons I can't yet articulate but feel absolutely, I need to do Morning Pages every single day first thing. The effect is cumulative. I no longer need discipline to keep up the practice. My morning wouldn't work without them. 

I wrote my first Morning Pages thinking only of those three pages. The next morning I woke curious and wrote three more, again without thought of the next day. This may be why it has worked. 

I write on loose pages, used copy paper onto which I have printed lines. There's a bountiful, free supply at my job and I don't want Morning Pages to cost much. I certainly don't want to work in a pretty notebook that discourages writing ugly things. Loose pages can be scanned, stored digitally, and then recycled. I rarely look back and no longer need the trophy stack of pages. I needed that the first year, but no longer. 

There are specific things I practice. For a while I focused on commas. I've worked to avoid beginning sentences with "so" which had become a tic. Last year I worked to stop ending sentences in prepositions because it clunked in my ear. Currently, I focus on holding the pen loosely so as not to hurt my shoulder and neck. I'm also working to avoid the lazy "you" that refers to no one in particular. Other things come about by happenstance. I'm writing about a quarter smaller than I was last year in part because I'm writing slower (45 mph instead of 70) and I have more to say. Practice hasn't come close to making perfect, but it surely is growth. 

Morning Pages are a way to begin each day alone with words on a page. I go to a secluded place in the house and in my head, follow a routine that bounds and frees me, and I add another day to the practice. It makes me feel writerly first thing and that feeling lingers. It also primes the pump of ideas. 

Where do ideas come from? For me, they come from practice, the regular movement of thought from brain to paper. They come from the act of writing words one, two, and three, allowing them to inspire the next dozen, and going on for three pages. Ideas are a byproduct of writing, of being a writer, and of having that practice. 

I can't imagine a better way to begin each and every day.