“The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight. There is nothing yet to research. For me, these moments are not pretty. I look like a desperate woman, tortured by the simple message, thumping away in my head: “You need an idea.””
Writer, tell me if you can relate:
You're in a writing funk.
The problem isn't so much snatching away a few minutes here and there to write--or maybe even a few hours--the real problem is that you just aren't feeling it. Sure there might be reasons (pandemics, an unfilled creative well, writing life trauma), but really you
Just. Aren't. Feeling. It.
You're reading craft books, you've covered the pages of multiple notebooks with reams of notes on possible projects. Nearly all of your sentences to anyone who will listen start with, "What if..."
What if I wrote a story like, um, like Romeo and Juliet, but in Mars?! Or, no wait--Romeo and Juliet ON A SUBMARINE.
Story ideas come and go, and maybe for a minute there you're really digging something. But then suddenly you're...not. They all sound stupid and pointless and you feel like maybe you should write something really IMPORTANT because, you know, pandemics.
The whole part of the process where you're between projects and you haven't committed to the idea for your next one (or even HAD it yet) is DEEPLY uncomfortable.
Just check out the quote at the top there by choreographer Twyla Tharp.
Up until quite recently, I've been in this place—and it’s not the first time I’ve been here. In fact, this is the first stop I make in my writing journey when I want to write a new story.
It’s not an issue of lacking creative wellness. I meditate and walk nearly every day. I have a writer's sabbath once a week. I mean, I literally created something called the Flow Lab. I had scores of ideas because the well was filled and yet...nothing. I felt like a daemon in His Dark Materials that hadn't settled on its form yet. One day, I'm positive I'm writing that WWII novel I literally went to Germany to do research for. The next? Tired of Nazis. I am FOR SURE writing a book about star-crossed lovers. A week later. UGH, this book is crap. Etc.
Scratching
In her book The Creative Habit, Tharp talks about this process better than anyone I've ever read. She calls it "scratching." Seriously buy this book and read the whole thing, but ESPECIALLY read the whole chapter on scratching. (While you’re at it, get the book Art and Fear.) I turned to Tharp again recently--as I turn to this book often over the years--for some comfort. It reminded me this is all very normal and necessary and I'm not alone.
This whole phase where you're searching for an idea is part of the process and one that you can bring a lot of intentionality to. Rather than turning to desperation or moping, you can actively show up for this stage.
A friend passed this Nick Cave quote along to me at just the right time, when I was feeling pretty alone in my writing funk and I reposted it a few days ago on Instagram:
Below is what happens during this stage for me, and it always happens this way because it's my process, but the thing is that I FORGET it's my process until my husband tells me I do this every time.
I share it in the hopes that if you're going through this, you can get some ideas for how to scratch on your own.
A Study In Scratching
I finish a book and either it's been accepted or rejected by my agent / editor. Now I have to write something new. Because I'm often juggling multiple projects, I usually have a WIP to fall back on while I'm searching for my next idea. This makes the whole process less uncomfortable because I get to be writing and working on something while looking for the next thing. Except this spring I DIDN'T HAVE ANOTHER PROJECT TO FALL BACK ON. Suddenly, I was in the No Man's Land of story ideas.
At first, this was exciting. Yay! I can play in my creativity sandbox and see what I come up with! I do writing exercises, I read poetry, I work on craft. I commit to an hour a day instead of 3 hours for writing because I know that 3 hours of scratching will just make me anxious.
I latch on to the first good idea and I'm FULLY COMMITTED. Until...I'm not. Then I start rapidly cycling through ideas. I bring out my trusty cigar box of index cards, filled with story ideas, that I bought at a voodoo shop in NOLA. Oh YES! I forgot all about that great story idea I'd thrown in there! I start working on it, but....no. It's not "the one."
I decide that the reason I can't focus on an idea is because of the chaos in my outer life. I begin rearranging furniture, throwing things out, organizing, cleaning. I make a lot of soup. I believe FIRMLY in the Gospel of Soup and that all crises can be weathered with a pot of soup. (We currently have A LOT of soup set aside in the freezer).
Throughout this time, my mind is whirling and whirring and I'm trying not to think about the market or that I promised a specific book to my agent by a specific time and now I hate that book idea and that time is getting closer. I start saying, "Merde" under my breath. A lot.
Despair settles in, but because I've been here before and I also have a healthy writer wellness system in place, I keep meditating and doing mindfulness work through all this discomfort, and keeping my weekly writer sabbath. I also am sure to be gentle with myself. I don't usually watch much TV, but during this time, I allow more of that. More down time. More binge reading. More gentleness in general.
I remind myself, again and again, that this is the season I'm in, that seasons change, that I just need to lean in and let this be uncomfortable. It's going to be okay. I have proof in this pudding: It's always okay in the end. An idea always comes. A story always tugs my sleeve. It's just taking its goddamn TIME about it, is all.
So I'm showing up and being mindful and filling the well and sitting with this uncomfortable uncertainty. I'm feeling kind of enlightened about the whole thing. I just REALLY MISS WRITING. I miss it! I miss writing a book! Telling a story! Living in new worlds with characters I love.
This is all made worse when triggered by comparison (someone I know gets a book deal etc.) or some sort of rejection in the industry (a book I have out doesn't do well etc). The only thing that saves me here is my mindfulness practice, which is why I harp on all the writers I work with to practice. We don't practice for the good times, we practice for these tough moments, so we can be ready when they come and not lose our shit.
Throughout this time, I'm working hard to be intentional (which is my number one rule for all writing, whether you're in this stage or drafting or revising). Show up. As Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." An hour a day of scratching. More reading throughout the day. More walks. More permission in general. I try to clear my schedule more than usual.
And then: EUREKA! The story comes. Out of nowhere or maybe it's been there all along and I just needed to see it in a certain light. Something clicks. I can see why this is not only the right story for me, but the right story for me RIGHT NOW. Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean you have to write it. I have to feel really jazzed and jazzed for a while. I have to want to WRITE the story, not just think about it.*
*As of press time, so to speak, I think I HAVE found my next project. Ask me in a month if that's still true.
“A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off. It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another. A bad idea closes doors instead of opening them...Scratching is what you do when you can’t wait for the thunderbolt to hit you.”
Me, meditating in the Word Garden at Highlights Foundation during the Secret Garden retreat I led in 2019.
One of the things I tell the writers I work with is that we have to think about writing as seasons.
Sometimes, you're in a really prolific, working season. Other times, you're a fallow field, taking a rest and waiting for ideas to plant themselves in you. All of that is good. All of that is the path.
Getting the book deal isn't the path. Those are ephemeral and they aren't writing. They're selling - two different things entirely. So the PATH of the writer is writing and creating and dreaming up stories. The PATH is the goal. So you can chill out because you've already achieved your goal, so long as you're still scratching and, eventually, writing in earnest.
We don't look at a fallow field and think it's a lazy piece of shit or that it's uninspired or that it's never going to amount to anything. We see it for what it is: earth, resting and regenerating.
During these scratching periods, I often begin questioning my place in the writing world and the world in general. This is all healthy. It's a time for reassessment.
Each new project is an invitation to challenge yourself, to create something new and to integrate who you are right now into your art. It's normal. It's part of the process. I literally do this every time.
So the first step is recognizing that this is your season: the season where you are waiting for something to bloom. Once you name it, you can work with it.
“As Pema Chödrön, the meditation teacher, says, “When we realize the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability.””
A Few Scratching Ideas To Get You Going That Work For Me
Be intentional. See below to download my Writing Cave Sign In Sheet. When you're in scratching mode, sign in to your cave for an hour and do any of the below, or your own scratching activities.
Meditate every day for at least 10 minutes. Meditation works the same muscles you use when you're in flow. It calms you the fuck down when you're in a creative panic. There are answers in the silence. You just have to listen.
Take a writer's sabbath once a week. A whole day with no writing or scratching. You need to keep that well filled and you need to give yourself a break otherwise you'll go into a creative tailspin. Speaking from experience here.
Read Poetry. One, it will help you improve your craft. Two, it will get you in the mood. Go through an anthology or pick a poet and read one of their collections. This is an excellent way to begin scratching.
Do tarot spreads. Ask questions about yourself, your life, stories, etc.
Go down the rabbit hole and get curiouser and curiouser. If you're thinking about textiles, just go down that hole. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote what she felt was her greatest novel by simply indulging in her interest in gardening when she was scratching for an idea. Just stay off social. Stick to Wikipedia.
If you have a hobby that really helps nourish you, do that too. I make soup and do tarot and play with my cat and nerd out about whisky and Scotland.
Take walks. I wrote this post on how walking is a game changer for loads of writers and thinkers, including yours truly.
Read. Pick up whatever is striking your fancy. Read outside your genre. Read omnivorously. Read, read, freaking read. Seriously. It's literally your job.
Use this time to grow in your craft and lean in to your writing community. Get some mentorship. Take a class to grow in a particular area of craft.
Here's to your scratching!
