(Originally posted to my Medium account in February 2024--about time I actually upload it to my personal blog!)
During lockdown, I couldn’t write stories; I remembered their elements, how they fit together — setting, character, plot — but each time I tried to write something new, my mind went blank. The pages remained unfilled. With life so interrupted, I couldn’t turn on the “creative faucet,” and so started a years-long dry spell. It was only until life settled (somewhat) into a “new normal” that I could even think about writing stories again, and I was anxious to start. I assumed getting back into practice would be easy.
Instead, it felt like getting psychically suplexed by bigfoot. The blank page was more inhospitable than ever; to make matters worse, what I did manage to scrawl down was balderdash. Malarky. Straight up crap. Where could I even begin?
In order to return to the practice of writing, I needed to invoke a different practice I had cultivated during lockdown: slow growth, a grounded gentleness towards the world and myself which helped me stay as sane as possible during uncertainty. I cast my attention away from my roiling thoughts to the natural world around me, observing the way things grew, unhurried, inch by inch, until flowers unfurled and fledglings took off from the nest. Gentle work, small changes, a focus on the present, all leading to something new.
So, I started coming to my writing practice with slow growth in mind and that same grounded gentleness distilled into four main ideas: accepting the unexpected, cultivating patience, starting small, and…eating ice cream.
1) Accept the Unexpected
The idea that we have ultimate control over our lives is a comforting fiction, but there’s a reason the adage “expect the unexpected” exists. The unexpected in your life may not be as severe as the first global pandemic in the 21st century, but delays and distractions like moving, changing jobs, having children — all the material that make up life — are bound to disrupt the practice of even the most dedicated writer.
Rather than just expecting the unexpected, I tried to accept it instead of beating myself up over the involuntary hiatus it caused. This is not the first dry spell, nor will it be the last, and I took comfort in the notion that if I was able to make it out of one, I could make it out of the others. Ultimately, making art of any kind is a choice — and whether you have been out of practice for three weeks or three years, you can always make the choice to return to it. Whatever moment you choose to return to practice — even if you don’t feel you’re ready — is the right moment to try. So long as you are alive, you can always begin again.
2) Cultivate Patience
That goes for your writing and doubly so for yourself. Some people are able to jump right back into their old projects with ease. During my first few weeks of restarting my writing practice, I would rather have sat on an anthill than keep my ass in the desk chair. But discomfort doesn’t mean failure, and it doesn’t mean that you will always feel squirmy, frustrated or uneasy each time you write. It’s a natural part of the creative process that occurs with particular ferociousness at the beginning of building a new habit, nothing more and nothing less.
By reframing my discomfort, I was able to rob it of its power. Rather than a testament to my willpower or the quality of my writing, I could see it for the annoyance that it was — something I could work through until, finally, it ebbed. Does it ever return? Yes, of course, sometimes even when I have been writing consistently. But it’s just part of the process. In the moment, discomfort may feel like a hurricane, but really, it’s just a rain shower; have patience and it will pass.
That said, there are certain tricks to aid you through the discomfort…
3) Start Small
There’s an SNL skit where Adam Sandler plays the owner of Romano Tours, who, when discussing reasonable expectations with his tour guests, says a vacation “can help you unwind and see some different looking squirrels,” but it can’t solve deeper problems: “that’s a job for incremental lifestyle changes sustained over time.”
Same deal here. I set low expectations at first, starting with fifteen-minute freewriting sessions a couple of days a week, without worrying about quality or intention to publish. I just wanted to scrape off the rust and start building a habit around writing. If I wanted to keep going after fifteen minutes had passed, I did; if, by the end of my allotted time, I wanted to rip my own fingers off, I stopped, no judgement. I slowly added more days to my writing practice until I found a schedule that worked and granted myself the grace of bad weeks. It took a few months of building this habit before I felt able to craft stories again. Even now, I begin each session with fifteen minutes of freewriting to turn the creative faucet on.
These incremental changes may be different for you, depending on how you like to work, what commitments you have, and so on. Some writers prefer to hit word counts instead of minutes, others block out longer writing sessions over fewer days a week. Experiment and discover what fits for you. The most important thing is to come away with a commitment that is doable, that you can scale up (or down) over time.
4) “Eating the Ice Cream” First
In his video “Avoiding Toxic Productivity Advice for ADHD,” author and ADHD advocate Jesse J. Anderson discusses how productivity advice often fails neurodiverse individuals, and that the inverse strategy may lead to greater success. His advice on “eating the ice cream first” proved incredibly helpful for restarting my writing practice, and turned out to be the piece that tied everything else together.
Anderson describes how most productivity advice revolves around “eating the frog” — getting the most difficult task in a project done first and then moving onto easier or more enjoyable elements. However, this technique can backfire by stalling momentum. Instead, Anderson suggests “eating the ice cream” — doing the easiest, most enjoyable part of the project first, and then using that “sense of momentum” to move onto the more difficult tasks.
When I wrote about ugly sketchbooks, I discussed how important a sense of fun is to making art, and the same principle applies here. I use my fifteen-minute warm-ups to do something fun, like interview characters or sketch out a setting — “eating the ice cream” before I get into the greater task of writing out full scenes in a novel or editing a short story. I love to open my writing practice with play, and I’ve built a small arsenal of prompt books and writing games to pull ideas from. Naming the World, a glorious anthology filled with short essays and exercises by a myriad of writers, has a permanent spot on my writing desk, and when I’m looking for more unorthodox inspiration, I pull a few cards from the Magical Myrioramas sets. Play helps work through discomfort as well — I can use the momentum from my warm-up to continue the writing session or ensure that I return to the desk the next time I’ve scheduled my writing practice. After all, as children, we write stories because they’re fun — why stop?
In essence, give yourself time to grow. Be gentle with yourself, start slow, and have fun. There’s always a chance to start anew — so why not start today?
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