Why I Write

I used to feel a shapeless longing—an aching emptiness that filled with sound whenever I picked up a guitar or a blank notebook or a set of colored pencils. Any time I so much as dipped a toe in creativity, the ache grew louder, pleading for immersion. I wrote angsty songs that seem to be about unrequited love, and maybe they were. It feels that way sometimes: as if there is some creative and infinitely loving energy swirling around me, just hoping I’ll give it the time of day. As if I am being chased by a muse. Not a brilliant muse necessarily. Just a really persistent one.

There are a million reasons to ignore the pull to create. We are too busy. Too practical. Too tired. Too sick. Too strapped for cash. In my life, I’ve mostly just been too afraid. I had a few too many professors say lovely things like “In my 25 years of teaching, this is the best paper I’ve ever read,” which I interpreted to mean “You are a dazzling writer and therefore must write only dazzling things.” The only way to guarantee this outcome was not to write at all, so for a very long time, I didn’t. Not a single poem. Not a single short story. Not a single essay, apart from the ones assigned for school. Songwriting was safe because I’m not much of a musician, so no one expected brilliance. Journal writing was safe because no one would ever read it. It’s nice to feel safe.

It's nice to feel safe, except when it also feels dull and meaningless. One day, in my late thirties, I was reading something that was brilliantly written and thinking that I too could have been a brilliant writer—a thought that filled me with smug pleasure—when suddenly I realized I had no way of knowing if that thought was even true. I was just sitting there, playing it safe, spinning the same self-soothing story over and over again in my bored-to-tears mind.

“Would I rather keep telling myself this cute little story about how I could have been a writer, or would I rather get to the end of my life and look back and see that I’d actually tried?” Suddenly, falling on my ass in the attempt to create something beautiful didn’t seem like failure. Or at least, it sounded like a failure to be proud of. I started writing a novel. So what if the only fiction I’d ever written was for assignments in elementary school? The point wasn’t to be brilliant. Nor was it to get published. The point was to be brave. The point was to live in the direction of my longing.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the aching, empty place inside me had been filled with . . . I don’t know what to call it. Joy? Beauty? Flow? Freedom? I just know that where I once felt hollowness and need, I began to feel a sense of overflowing. Fear is still there, too. It’s almost always there. But it isn’t running the show . . . at least not most of the time.   

I know I’m not alone in the craving to create. Nor am I the only one who has ever been blocked by fear. This ache and the uncertainty of how to assuage it comes up often in my sessions with coaching clients. And in different ways, it reappears for me personally, too. I’m working on my second novel now and have been finding myself blocked and avoidant when it comes to the actual writing. I care so much about this book. The story kicks around inside me day and night. And because I care so much, I want it to be perfect, which makes me imagine that every word I write must be dazzling, and so I write hardly any words at all.

In December, one of my poems was published in a local literary magazine, and in January, I launched 100 Poems, a Substack where I am sharing 100 original and freshly written poems this calendar year and encouraging others to do the same. (It‘s like one big poetry group hug!) As I’ve considered the mostly-in-my-head challenges I’m facing with my second novel, I thought about how suddenly I took up poetry and how fully I dove in. I think the key to my comparative fearlessness in that arena is that I had no idea what I was doing, and I knew it. I expected very little of myself. I dubbed 2023 my “Year of Shitty Poetry” and aimed to write a poem a day, fully accepting that most or all of them would be bad. I didn’t hit the every-day mark, but I went from being a person who had written no poems to being a person who has written rather a lot of them and had loads of fun in the process. When it comes down to it, I think this is what those stubborn muses are asking of us—that we engage in the process. Not that we create a perfect product.

Or maybe we are the product? Maybe the point is that we are transformed when we follow and nourish our creative impulses?

Anyway, back to my rather winding tale . . . . A few days ago, I decided that I need to apply the same low-pressure attitude to my novel. And so, I officially proclaimed 2024 to be “The Year of My Shitty First Draft.” This simple and rather silly reframing has had me clicking away at the keys with more flow and fire than I’ve felt in a long while.

I think I needed to be blocked to reach my current state of flow. I think I needed all of the moments that came before now in order for now to be what it is.

Maybe you have your own mostly-in-your-head blocks to creativity. Maybe you have some beyond-your-control barriers, as well. I can certainly relate to those. I’m finally emerging from a several months long flare of brain fog, fatigue, and all the other long Covid things. Those symptoms impact my ability to create. Some days they obliterate it. But they also inspire creativity. They slow me down and invite me to see the world through different eyes. The hard things in our life feel softer if we can, even just in tiny moments here and there, treat them like clay or paint or paper . . . like things from which we might, in time, make something beautiful. Like things from which we might make something right now.

What are you creating? What are you longing to create? What stands in the way? What helps you to move through fear? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

If you’re interested in reading and writing poetry, please come join the group hug here. If you would like to explore the possibility of coaching sessions with me, let me know by replying to this email.