Week 11: When There are No Words, Read

There will be days when no words emerge.

Writing is a walk, a pilgrimage through the crevices of existence (and learning where your own soul dovetails with them). The walk lasts your entire life, if you choose to accept the journey.

So, therein lies that truth: there will be days when no words emerge. When all you have left to show at the end of the day is a blank page. This truth is one that holds nuance. If you battle against that truth, it can be frustrating. If you personalize that truth, it can dash your spirit. If you disregard that truth, it can lead to a lot of bad drafts.

But what if that truth were embraced and accepted as part of the process? What if we were to do the very radical act of accepting ourselves? Every word that exists at the right time and every word that absconds at the wrong time?

From that acceptance, a freedom can germinate, a realization that we, as writers, are not machines. We are simply committing to a journey of offering words to a page, hoping they amount to a cohesive, resonant story.

Then what do we do in the meantime, when there are no words. We read! It is staggering to see how many writers do not read nowadays. Reading used to be tantamount to an education in writing, lessons that could not be taught in a classroom--one could only glean them from reading stories.

I implore you: when there are no words, read. Read novels, scripts, poetry, non-fiction, articles, memoirs, craft books on writing. Read anything. Read widely. If there are no words burning with desire to leap from your mind, then you have to fill the well. You have to introduce more words, stories, and experiences, so that the words will emerge again and again and again.