When the Work of Writing Isn’t Writing

I am heading to the beach for a writing retreat with some dear writing friends next week. I am excited and desperately looking forward to it. Beach. Words. Writers. What’s not to love?

I’m querying my most recent project and have had enough distance from it to know that it’s time for something new. This retreat seemed to come at the perfect time to recharge my writing life. Something I’ve let languish as I have researched agents, polished query letters, and focused on my client work.

On Monday, I realized I have absolutely no idea what I’m writing next.

Nothing.

Nada.

Okay. Maybe not nothing. There’s been this “thing” that keeps popping up in my life for the last year. A theme, maybe. A topic. I don’t know. It’s all related to one piece of source material. But it’s not a real idea yet. Not something with characters and setting and a story goal.

Just this “thing.”

But…

I committed to a week to work on my writing. But I am in no place to be writing.

Uh oh.

So I did what any writer would do in this situation: I panicked.

Then, I tried to force myself to think. I went for a walk. I plead with the muse to just tell me what this thing means already. I literally emptied my mind and waited for that spark of inspiration to arrive.

Breaking news: it didn’t.

(If your muse works that way, I’m totally jealous, by the way)

What did come to me was the realization that I now have an opportunity to spend a whole week exploring this idea. To read and research. Free write. Journal. Ideate. Whatever. My work next week might look a whole lot like staring out at the ocean, but I think that’s the exact work I need to do right now.

In the mess of busy schedules and commitments and deadlines at home, I have very little time to dedicate to brainstorming. If I have a writing goal, I can execute in the midst of the chaos, but all this nebulous noodling I need to do needs more quiet time, more opportunity to follow tangents, less middle of the day appointments or last minute carpools.

This week, my work looks like preparing for next week’s success. I am gathering up raw materials related to all the things this year I encountered related to this “thing.” I am making playlists and organizing some journal prompts. I’m researching all kinds of things to take with me to ponder on.

The reason I am sharing all this is because one, I think we need to remember that writing has different stages and our needs around those various stages are going to change. Being prepared for these changes is important in a creative life. And two, because writing every day might not look like physically writing every day.

I hear from lots of writers who fear they aren’t doing it right if they aren’t writing every day. If that works for you, do it. If it doesn’t because you have a demanding day job or young kids or an ailing parent or your own illness, chronic or otherwise, writing might be simply thinking on a story problem or listening to a song that evokes an emotion you’d like to get on the page or diving into a writing craft podcast to solve a structure issue you’ve encountered. Or it may mean research or doodling or story mapping or answering 1,000 questions about your protagonist to get to know her better.

Or it may mean staring into the depths of the ocean pondering your next idea.

Whatever it is, it’s part of the work of writing.

So while I may not have fingers to the keyboard every moment next week, I will be doing important writing work.

And it’s imperative that I recognize that and stop judging my work as a word count tracker at the bottom of my page.

Writing is a lot of things. All of it work. Not all of it typing.

Whatever work looks like for you this week, I wish you success.

Featured photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash