My mind is blank!

Sunday is when I write my weekly blog. It is one of my rituals for the week.

This Sunday, however,  I’ve been thinking to myself, “What on earth am I going to write about?” And writing is like that. Sometimes, you just draw a blank. Creativity seems to have fled and there is only so much you can write about the painstakingly tedious task of editing a first draft.

So, instead, I thought I’d write about just that – the fact that writing isn’t something that comes easily every day. In fact, it comes really hard most of the time. There are those moments when you get into a groove and it flows and your whole being feels like it is where it is supposed to be in the universe (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it ‘Flow’). They don’t come every day, though.

So what words of wisdom can I offer when it feels like your Flow has been weighed down with several tons of wet cement and it is the quick-drying variety?

First of all – write. Even if you don’t feel like it. Even if every sentence you write is barely English, let alone coherent. Even if you have no idea where the writing is going to take you. You are a writer, so you simply have to write. A writer who doesn’t write is…. well, a shop assistant or a nurse or a teacher or a management consultant.

Secondly – relax. The more you try and force things, the harder it gets. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – so I was taught in school (though whether Sir Isaac actually said it is something I’ve never found out). That means the more you push, the more your brain will push back – and, strange as it sounds, you don’t want your brain taking too active a role in what you are doing. You need to give room for your mind and spirit to move.

And finally – wing it! Sit at the keyboard, type madly and pretend you are writing the most inspired and fantastic bit of prose ever. I can almost guarantee that none of your readers will notice that you had no clue what you were doing when you sat down to write.

After all, if I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t have known that that’s what I did today, now would you?

1 comment to My mind is blank!

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