Trying Times

These days doing something is not necessarily accomplishing anything tangible. Much of what you do now—whether you admit it or not—is trying and hoping that by the time you rise from your chair, a working draft was born.

Such reality is more challenging for someone whose workflow is mainly writing. No matter how you maneuver the writing, the patterns and style you laid out and grew accustomed to, a time will come when you can’t just write to your standards. You have the words but not a concrete map to place them line by line.

Such is my fear in writing, especially when somebody expects the output tomorrow or next week. A blank page is not a guaranteed fresh start. But a continuation of the ideas you have written and the ones that you cannot leave behind. They will mess with your head.

Some days, you can jump right into writing, but in most cases, it is a tough job to call the creative mind to till the land for your planting.

Not very helpful advice, but I say stick your butt to your chair whether you have the courage or not. In other words, muster your writing discipline.

By now, I know that writing is no different from committing yourself to finishing the story. It will take you some time to sketch it before you finally see the pattern, then the direction. But you have to try as a start. You have the words, but you need some time to befriend them before they become a paragraph in one or more sitting.

Beyond the satisfaction in writing—including the moment your draft made its way to the editor’s desk—the fun part is always figuring out what your story will become. And to make it as different as the previous stories you told before. To do so, you have to try in the face of the most trying times.

Drafted November 6, 2021