Rain on Your Writing?
It wasn’t too long ago that my life made an unexpected left turn, the wrong way, down a one way street. It started a few years ago and, today, there are vestiges of life’s crap still creeping around in the background. I won’t go into the grim details here, but trust me when I say, “It really, really, really sucked.” Life was dumping a torrential downpour on me, and my writing.
Shortly before everything went off track, I had started to write seriously. My mind was filled with stories that needed to be told. I went to writer’s conferences to learn the nuts and bolts of the writing business, and, furiously, I got to work. Then the sky opened up. I was sent awash down an overflowing river without a paddle (and I fell out of the boat a few times too).
What is a writer to do when they get hit by life’s “little” floods? How do you drag yourself through the quagmire to get back into writing? My biggest suggestion; don’t stop in the first place. Unless you are comatose, there isn’t a reason not to write. At some point my creative juices shriveled up into a grey clump of rotten raisins. I couldn’t think a thought that ran in a straight line. They jumped from one anxiety attack to another. Writing? HA! Sometimes I could only write a paragraph. Sometimes just a few stray thoughts. No matter what, I wrote something.
If you are trying to navigate through one of your life’s rainstorms here are a few suggestions to keep going:
- Write as much as you can manage.
- Attend your critique group whether you have written anything or not.
- Stay in touch with your writing friends (and friends at large).
- Attend writer’s conferences – (I’ll be at, PPWC2018, and RMFW2018 – I hope to teach a class at the latter of the two).
- Write about your struggles. It is cheaper than a therapist! *grins*
- Visit your therapist – they are amazing.
DON’T QUIT! There will be days that you sit at your computer and think, “I’m a fraud! I can’t do this! I quit!” After a brief pity party, get back at it, one word at a time. The flood waters will recede. You will once again be on a safe shore to write how you were meant to; BEAUTIFULLY.
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This post is inspired by Insecure Writer’s Group’s April 4th question: When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?
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K.J. Scrim, Author 
Found your post today…was just what I needed to read. Thank you!!!
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You are welcome. I’m glad it’s what you were looking for. 🙂
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Don’t quit pretty much sums it up. That’s really the great thing about writing – no matter where you left off, it’s always there, waiting for you to pick it up again. Sometimes we come back to our projects with new insights, new inspiration, new life.
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I’m with you. I think sometimes the worst seasons of life make for the best writing.
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Good advice! I had a time when I had just finished a novel then my computer crashed and I didn’t have a backup. I was so depressed over it, I didn’t write for over three years. Now I wish I would have kept writing.
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I would have cried for weeks!!! I am glad you are back to writing. Although you lost that three years, you are back at it now and that is the most important part. Keep on keeping on!! 🙂
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Oh, I did cry for at least a week. It was so heart-breaking because it was my first go at writing a novel. Of course, the story was needing a lot of help. LOL I’ve considered rewriting it, but then I realized I wasn’t as attached to the story as I thought I was. Now I just think of it as good practice. It was hard getting back into writing though. Doing the serials helped make it easier because they’re much shorter than novels.
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