Writer's Malaise

So what’s happening in your writing life? Did you make a resolution this year to write more or stick to a particular schedule for your writing and after a few weeks you’re beginning to feel VERY far away from achieving that goal? Did you start out all gung ho but as time passed you didn’t stick with that resolution as well as you’d like?

Or are you being distracted from fulfilling your writing goals because of worry over the world or political goings on or your child’s school? Is your 9-5 job so full of disharmony that your mind can’t concentrate on your writing? Or are you having relationship problems that overshadow everything else?

Or are you just plain lazy and have been enjoying bingeing on all those TV series you’ve been wanting to see?

Whatever the reason, the cold days of winter can often be a time when you’re just not feeling content with things in your life or the world, and that discontent can stop you from writing.

I wish there was a magic fix for this, because that disharmony in your world can actually lead to more interesting writing. Think about the feelings you’re experiencing, whatever they might be, and imagine those feelings were being experienced by a surgeon who had to do 3-4 operations a day. How might those feelings impact his job? Or the governor of a state who’s realizing this is NOT what she actually wants to do with her life but she’s got three more years to go? Think about the dramatic possibilities in situations like these. And then think about writing about them.

One way to get yourself back in the swing is to write anything. Don’t make yourself try to write the script you know you should be working on, instead write an essay—just for fun—about your first kiss, or the day you got your driver’s license, or a big fight you had with a sibling… write about something that takes you back to a different time in your life.

The key is: write. Start a diary and in the first entry write about your frustration over not finishing your script—that’s writing. Baby steps—if that’s all you can manage, hey, they’re a start.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that when the cares of the world impinge on my writing, I find writing to be an escape FROM those cares and it’s actually a healthy thing for me to concentrate on my writing. It’s an escape from the difficult world that I can’t control to the ‘ideal’ world of writing a story that I CAN control.

And what a nice feeling that is. Do it long enough and guess what? I can face the cares of the world and other complexities of living much more easily.

It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? The key to getting past writer’s malaise is to write. So do it. Force yourself to get away from the troubled world by telling yourself a story—then writing it down!

Copyright © Diane Lake

19Feb17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com