I don’t have a post this week. I don’t have anything to write about or anything insightful to say. There are times when my head is full of ideas and every moment I’m not writing chafes, like an itch I can’t scratch. But inevitable comes the day that one dips into the well to find it barren, and there’s no way of predicting when the rains will come. The dry spells can last days or until the end of time—though the latter is unlikely in this ever-changing world we inhabit. Eventually, something will come along and shake loose just enough creativity to squeeze out 500-1000 words. Right?
I’m even struggling with the book I’m writing. It’s the third and final act: I know what my characters need to do, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling. I know what needs to happen to bring the narrative full circle, to complete the themes, the arcs, to compliment the motifs and send the reader off with the kind of satisfaction that feels earned, without pandering or compromising. But the words themselves, the story’s structure at the atomic level, have to be dragged out of me like they’re appearing on the screen after travelling a great distance.
Is it external forces that create this barrier or self-doubt and ennui? Stress at work or at home, murder in the headlines, the creeping dread of melting sea ice that is now synonymous with summer in the northern hemisphere?
Or is it factors inside my head that impede me? Not enough sleep, or too much sleep? Diet? Does it have something to do with serotonin or dopamine or some other neurotransmitter? Is it a feedback loop of recognizing I’m not being productive enough leading to less confidence in my writing ability, leading to less productivity in a vicious infinite regress? Does considering possibilities like that cause them to manifest when they otherwise would not have? Have I thought myself into this hole?
There is another possibility that I fear far more than the rest. In the past, when I’ve lost interest in writing projects, it’s been because my brain moved on before I was ready: I started thinking about ‘the next project’ and the freedom of creativity that it promises. At the beginning of a story the possibilities are endless, expanding out to infinity in all directions. But as paths are chosen and virtual ink is spilled, that profusion of potentials must be pruned, until the finale and the dénouement, when all that remains is the inevitable conclusion— merely the consequences of every choice that came before it and not really a choice itself. It takes discipline to carry out that final execution.
On the other hand, all it takes is a seed of an idea, and before I know it, I’m subconsciously working on a different story than the one I’m actively writing. A few weeks ago just such an idea came along, and after viewing it from several angles I became convinced it could hold narrative water. It’s possible that I lost the battle in that very moment; I spent a writing session jotting down ideas for characters, factions, and technology, and just today I expanded on it by filling in details that were bouncing around my head all night, writing more easily and fluently than I have in over a week. It was thrilling, but also deeply concerning.
Whatever the cause or causes, the ‘new me’ that writes every day (or at least stares at a blank page for an hour) is confident that it will pass. I’ve never finished a writing project as big as the one I’m embedded in now, but I’ve learned to trust myself and have faith that it will be finished when it’s done. I enjoy editing my own writing, so I’m saving that for myself as a treat—my reward for seeing this thing through to the end. I hope to have it professionally edited before I start seeking a publisher, but that still feels distant enough that I’m not worried about where the money will come from or what kind of response I’ll get when my writing is scrutinized by a hardened professional.
At some point, I do plan to post snippets of writing projects here. I have a finished short story I’ve been sitting on for almost a year that I need to give a final editing pass to, then I might publish it in weekly installments here on Substack. For now, I think this exercise may have served its purpose; I have a story to finish telling, and another—one very, very different—that’s just starting to take shape in my mind.