Don’t Feel Guilty for Not Writing

I want to talk a little about the writing process. People write in different ways, some are planners, some are more spontaneous, but deep down we love it, right? So what happens when it becomes hard?

I feel guilty when I’m not working. If I’m not editing, or writing, I feel like I’m letting my side down. When I’m too busy to write I feel like I’m letting my characters down, and when I finally sit in front of that blank page, tea in hand, several hours to kill, I can’t do it. I have to get up, go make some more tea, maybe a lavender brew this time to calm my raging thoughts. Then I get up again, tidy the room, a messy room is a messy mind. But nothing is coming.

And you know what, it’s okay.

It’s okay to not be able to write anything.

It’s okay to be a bit idealess sometimes. And well, if I’m like that all the time, maybe the story needs to take a different direction. Whatever needs to happen, I’ll think on it.

There are limitless ideas out there floating in aether, and somehow we have to pick ones that fit our puzzles

Thinking is a major aspect of the writing process and should never be disregarded. I have several pages of notes in my phone devoted to thoughts about my story. I get inspiration from conversations I hear on trains (“I’ll talk to you all dick day long”), things my friends say (“Sunday at a train station reminds me of a swimming pool”), structuring of plot lines in other books (escalation, event, reconciliation), words I’ve just thought of to use as descriptors (obsidian, onyx), YouTube videos, songs and playlists, Pinterest helps me to see my character’s styles more clearly, and it all comes together to help me think.

And you may argue, that this isn’t the same as writer’s block, because I’m still working on it. Not always. Sometimes I can sit on the concept of a Limpia healing ritual for months, not knowing how to approach it before I decide, nah, what about a FIRE healing ritual? And then sit on that one for months before scrapping it. These thoughts aren’t worthless or wasteful. There are limitless ideas out there floating in aether, – L I M I T L E S S – ideas and somehow we have to pick ones that fit our puzzles. It’s hard. It’s a lot of work sorting through all those pieces. You may think that your puzzle doesn’t have any pieces that fit, that you need to throw it away and start from scratch, but hang on before you do. Maybe that idea doesn’t work in that puzzle but could it fit in another one later? Maybe you can try working from the middle out? Remember, limitless. There’s going to be a solution, it might just take time to figure out.

Don’t feel guilty for not writing. Just because you aren’t physically typing pages, it doesn’t mean no work is happening. The hard work happens in your head, the easy part is physical.

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