Feeling Stuck?
Have you ever struggled getting to the page? Or taking advantage of time which you could devote to your creativity?
I have to admit, I don’t recall ever experiencing writer’s block. Mostly because, with a brain like jiffy-pop, I have always had multiple projects going on at the same time.
If I needed to pause the writing and work through an idea for a novel I was working on, I write poetry on the side, or work on a picture book idea. Something small that I could slip into and out of for brief moments. Or, at times, it was a chapter from a completely different novel that I want to write (I have ideas for 10 full-length novels written down and ready for my attention, plus over a dozen picture book ideas, and numerous poems).
Having Time Doesn’t Always Mean Taking Advantage
All I have been waiting for is time to write. Now that I am retired (WooHoo), you’d think I would be jumping into all those writing opportunities with both feet. Only, I’ve felt this sense of resistance over the past two months. A hesitation. In part, perhaps, because I didn’t write anything (no prose work, no poetry) in 2023, 2024, and 2025. For three full years, I was away from the page.
Drifting Far From Shore
Sometimes you drift so far from shore that all you can see is the vastness of the ocean surrounding you. You’ve been waiting for a chance to catch a breeze and unfurl the sail, only now that you are so far from where you had been, the sail has become tattered from a lack of use, as if the wind will blow right through without giving you any momentum. Now is your chance, only you look out at the expanse and you feel lost in a way, so you don’t even try to open the sail.
In my intentions, as I make my way back to the page, I am trying to work my way in reverse order through the four novel manuscripts for which I have written a first draft, starting with the manuscript I wrote during Covid. Now, I finally have time to devote to my passion. Except, I have been running into that internal resistance.
Some of that is to be expected, I suppose. After all, I have to make decisions with the novel’s plot. Tweaks to the story are certainly needed. And they feel very important. Which is not unlike needing to choose in which direction to set sail after unfurling the jib out there in the middle of the ocean. And there’s a resistance that arises from the fear of making the wrong choice. But, at that point, after you have been bobbing dead in the water for so long, after you find yourself so far from shore, you have to ask yourself, does it matter which direction you move in or simply that you move?
Because, in truth, no matter what direction you sail in, eventually you will find land.
Don’t Be Hard On Yourself If You Resist
Each day since my retirement, I have pondered what I wanted to do with the novel, which is part of the writing process. But I have also found ways to avoid being at the page and, actually, writing. I’d study the sail, touch the canvas, but leave it lashed. On one hand, even writing the last blog post, my first in 8 years, was me avoiding work on my novel. But it was also one way I could finally be at the page in some fashion. The same is true of this post. However, I found that in writing this, it forced me to own the hesitation. Helped me work my way back to the act of writing.
Write Into What’s Challenging You
Only, today is also different because I remembered something that I feel compelled to share. When my good friend, talented writer and writing coach, Terry Price and I were leading the West of the Moon Retreat, some of the prompts I gave folks were related to their own current emotional and mental state. I asked them to write their way into those very feelings and challenges. Somehow, I had forgotten that.
I have never been big on using writing prompts for the sake of merely writing anything, unless they relate to my current project. So, I would always try to make sure the prompt was able to be shaped in such a way that it could be applied to whatever the writer was working on.
For my own novel, I have been feeling a bit confused. I haven’t trusted myself (that dreaded self-doubt).
So I decided to lean into that confusion. To lean into the tension and resistance and emotions those things have stirred up in me, as I find myself for the first time with an abundance of time to devote to the one thing I have wanted to do for over two decades. It’s natural to feel pressure to take advantage of that time, which can be its own obstacle. Though, knowing that doesn’t make it any less of an obstacle.
Permission to Play
Rather than continue to bump up against the tension and uncertainty, I gave myself permission to play, which was always the overarching theme of West of the Moon. I decided to give myself permission to experiment. My prompt — allow my protagonist to feel confusion and tension and resistance. I put her in a situation which was one of the new changes I considered adding to the story and told myself, this is just an experiment. So, have fun with it and see what happens.
People who sail often love the feeling of moving across the water. I needed to embrace that feeling rather than the fear of being wrong in my choices. I needed to unfurl the sail and set out in whatever direction the prompt took me. For the whole point was to sail. To move.
Give Yourself Permission To Be Surprised
Sitting down to the vast blankness of the white page, I let the breeze of my own emotions stir, and started writing the new scene (one that may or may not remain in the story). And that’s the beauty of experimenting. If I write a chapter and it doesn’t fit, it still informs me about the character and that knowledge will influence future work in the story. Perhaps I keep a page or a paragraph or maybe just a line that will fit somewhere. Perhaps not. I’m no worse off.
Putting my protagonist in an unexpected and uncomfortable situation, I let her feel tension and confusion and a sense of unease, giving her a chance to lead me through it.
Soon, I had a new four-page scene. As well as new ideas for subsequent scenes with those same characters (the fallout, if you will, of that moment of tension as it might play out in the story). More importantly, writing that scene immersed me back into the story itself (with no preconceived destination), reconnecting me rather intimately with the protagonist after years away.
I gave myself permission to try something that wasn’t previously part of the story. And, in creating something entirely new, I was suddenly returned to the creating part which sparked other ideas.
Special Consideration:
The emotions don’t have to be strictly related to the creative process. If you are feeling concern, regret, guilt, overwhelmed, fatigued, disappointed, overjoyed, excited, anxious . . . about life itself, put your character into the emotional current that is present in your own daily life. It might even help you navigate, purge, even harness those feelings for yourself.
Way Leads On To Way
Afterwards, I was also able to start work on revising my opening chapter (which is where most of my uncertainty existed). I gave myself permission to try an idea that I am pretty sure I had been censoring in my head before ever sitting down to the page (hence some of the trepidation and resistance). As a result, it kept me from even trying. Permission to play, to experiment, is really permission to make the wrong decision without worrying about doing so.
“You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” — Dolly Parton
If it doesn’t work, I can simply try another angle. But either way, I am moving. I am sailing again.
Owning The Resistance
I wanted to write this quick post (which, yes, is also me not writing the novel), simply to emphasize the fact that tapping into the emotion I was feeling, in channeling that, and slipping a similar tension into my story, if for no other reason than as an experiment to see how the protagonist might handle the emotional challenge, had me back at the page.
Ironically, as I worked on this post, I also discovered (having been away from this blog for so long), that I had written a similar post nine years ago titled “The Obstacle is the Path.”
So, in a way, this entire exercise was me reminding myself of something I already knew.
If you find yourself feeling afraid or uncertain, disappointed or frustrated, or if you feel like a failure or a pretender (all emotions many creatives experience from time to time), don’t let that apprehension keep you from your creative pursuits. Lean into those feelings. Let your characters, your art, show you the way through them.
Put your protagonist or the narrator of a poem or the subject of a painting in a situation related to the very thing pushing back against you. Give yourself permission to experiment, to play, to simply see what happens.
You might be surprised by what you discover about your own characters and where it all might lead.
Keep after it, y’all!