There’s always been a sinking feeling associated with writer’s block. Is this the end? Am I never going to be able to write again? I’m not getting any inspiration or motivation to put words on the page.
This has always been an issue for me. I always start and stop, and start and stop, and start and stop. It’s difficult for me to finish writing projects, either because I get bored with the piece, or I just have no ideas. This has been one of the biggest frustrations in my writing life. Because I want to write.
I mean, what writer doesn’t?
This is why, as I said a few blog posts ago, I’ve started trying to write every day. I do have to admit that it hasn’t been exactly every day. However, I have kept up with it a lot more than I thought I would, which surprised me a bit. Because when I’ve written has always been so sporadic, I thought I wouldn’t do it nearly as much as I have (and this is me coming off of a period of not writing).
The one thing that’s really gotten to me, though, is while I have been attempting to write every day (my current goal is to at least get one paragraph in, and if I write more, I write more), I’ve been neglecting the one writing project I’m really invested in.
This post, in one way, is kicking me in the butt to get writing on it again. But in another way, I’d like to address the fact that it’s okay to get stuck sometimes, which isn’t what I was thinking when I set out to write this. Because sometimes the guilt of not writing makes you not write even more, which isn’t conducive to anything.
I want to be able to tell myself that it’s okay to be stuck, and it’s okay to take a break. That it doesn’t make me any less of a writer to not write – which is how it definitely feels sometimes. I look at all the successful writers out there and compare myself to them, imagining how much writing they must do all the time. Obviously, they write 7 days a week, nonstop. They’re so committed to writing that they don’t do anything else. Successful writers, I imagine, sit at desks and hammer away at keyboards, pushing glasses up the bridges of their noses in the dark. The only light is the screens of their computers.
…as if successful writers don’t have lives.
One thing I seem to always forget is that every writer has to have experiences to gain inspiration. It’s why every good idea comes at you while you’re driving, in the shower, out with your friends, or in the middle of reading someone else’s work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten ideas while reading. Most of them have had little to do with the actual material I’ve been looking at at that moment, either.
I also seem to always forget that I do make progress, however little, whenever I write. No word goes to waste, even if I erase it. It’s helped me. Its existence has moved me closer to my goal, which is to publish my book.
I think we all need encouragement that what we’re doing isn’t in vain sometimes. Every mistake is a learning moment, as is every success. Every stop doesn’t mean everything is over. It just means that you can start again.
Please continue to support these causes and organizations:
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
National Police Accountability Project
Unicorn Riot Alternative Media
.
.
.
Meagan Jones is a writer and artist from Southern Maine. She graduated in 2019 from the University of Maine at Farmington with a Creative Writing BFA and a Spanish minor. Check out her personal website at https://meaganljones.wordpress.com/ Follow her on Twitter @supernarra