Day 16: Just Start Writing

Louis L'Amour

Staring a page and not knowing what to write is a very familiar occurrence. My brain just sputters at me and creativity goes on strike. I don’t know what to do with myself. Far too often my response is to go read a book or check my email. I find other things to do and leave the empty page behind. But the thing is, it doesn’t get easier to start writing the longer I wait. I lose time and who knows how many ideas because I walked away.

Some people call it writers block. To me that makes it sound like it’s out of our hands and we can’t write until it goes away.

 Lies. 

Lies told to keep us from reaching our true potential. To excuses us for being lazy. This is how my writing started the day I began this post:

“Stuck. Stuck with nothing to write. Stuck with nothing good to write.

Boring. Boring words. Boring ideas. Boring black pages staring at me.

Tired. Tired of writing. Tired of writing nothing. Tired and want to stop writing nothing.”

I didn’t know what to write. I had no idea of what to put on the page. I’ve been stuck for days because of that. But, instead of wondering off and finding something else to do I started with those lines. No, I stated with that one word, Stuck, and funny thing happened. Words came. Slowly at first then faster, ideas taking shape beneath my fingers.

Every time I sit down and force myself to write this same thing happens, one word becomes a sentence and then a paragraph leads to a page. Sometimes it takes more nonsense then others but I can’t think of a single time that it’s failed. I can however think of lots of times when I’ve failed to do it. When I’ve let myself be lazy and write nothing. I can’t blame writers block for not having anything to show for those days, I can only blame myself.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on the NaNoWriMo Word War forums mostly on the 30 minute one; there’s usually someone else around and it helps to commit to writing. Sometimes I get a lot done in that half hour, sometimes I don’t get much at all, but in the end I’m writing, I’m getting things done and that’s what counts.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ― Louis L'Amour

Start writing, keep writing.

— Rita

Day 16 of NaNoWriMo