"When Joe Bunting invited me to contribute a guest blog post to The Write Practice, I was thrilled. After all, it's a thriving community of dedicated writers hungry for craft discussion. It’s a writing coach’s dream come
true.
What is not a dream, however, what is in fact a writer’s worst nightmare, is when your creativity fails to flow, when despite your best efforts the words fail to come.
When your tried-and-true writing process fails you.
Which is exactly what happened with my first attempt at a post for The Write Practice's readers.
I had originally intended to
write about story, how in my opinion story is often overemphasized, and what writers should concentrate on instead. I wrote a draft—it was a half-decent draft, too—then set it aside to marinate before diving in for revision. (This is my standard writing process, and what works for me most of the time.)
But that revision never came. After five painful weeks of planning, trying, and never managing to actually rewrite that post, I came to a realization. I can’t write this piece, not right now anyway, I said to myself and to Joe. But I can write something else instead.
That something else is this post you’re reading right now. Thousands of discarded words and one stress ulcer later . . . ta-da!
Why I was unable to write the piece I intended is a question for another time. What I’m concerned with here is what such experiences of creative blockage can teach us about our writing process.
What do we do when our writing practice unexpectedly goes off the rails? When writing feels like the worst thing in the world?"
You want even more reading? You got it.
