"Creating Differently,"

& writing slumps

I’m sorry for the delay. Apologies for taking so long to get back to you. Please forgive my late reply.

Lately, I just can’t get myself to write. No—I can’t get myself to like what I write.

I’ve been trying. And then trying not to try. And then desperately missing that flow—that coveted writing brain, so obsessed with the thing we’re writing that we can’t help but think about it, and yet: we forget ourselves when we write (the most blissful forgetting!). You know the feeling.

I’m in a place of waiting. Waiting to hear back about my book. Waiting for the new sentences to spark. Waiting for this restless feeling to resolve. Waiting for the news to stop sucking (yeah, I know I’ll be waiting a long time for that!).

Last week, I was talking with my dear writing friend, Cari Oleskewicz, telling her, I just want to let myself get up in the morning and not go to the writing desk, go for a walk instead, or take a dance class, do anything else but wait for emails or stare at sentences I dislike.

But I have such a hard time letting go of my coveted coffee and writing time; I know I should try to change it up, since lately most of my writing time feels off, but I can’t seem to do it.

And then Cari said, “Sounds like a fantastic idea, to go out and create differently.”

She gifted me language—my new motto, I have since declared, for my summer: Creating differently.

I want to try.

What are some ways you create differently?

What are some ways you get yourself out of a writing slump?

Here’s my running list; please share some of yours with me!

• Take a walk

• Take a drawing class

• Talk to a friend

• Take screen/internet/social media breaks

• Volunteer

• Go swimming

• Go for a hike

• Go to a dance class

• Practice yoga

• Clean

• Organize

• Read!

• Read, read, read

• Re-read nice things people have said about your writing

• Remember: we all go through this; I have gone through this before; this will end (Will it? It will, right? It will!)

• Explore a new place, if you can

  

  Yesterday, I went to a place I’d never been, Belle Isle in Richmond, a layered island full of surprises: the violent James River rapids on one side; a strange constellation of stagnant water and sunny rocks in the middle, that you get to by climbing down a ladder; remains of an old granite quarry, an old transformer building; the site of a Civil War POW camp…

• Rest

• Go to a museum (Richmond’s VMFA is free 365 days/year!!)

• Watch the birds (there are two baby cardinals in a nest in my backyard as I type this, momma and papa birds guarding them from my cat, maybe there is an essay here)

• Lower your expectations

• Reframe your self-talk

• Journal

• Read interviews with other writers about their struggles and triumphs

I’m considering this month’s newsletter a win; I wrote a thing. I wrote a thing I hope might help one of you. I wrote a thing and the sentences flowed and I want to hear how you create differently. Please share below!

Here for whoever needs a writing chat, and with you in this rollercoaster of artistic emotions,

Caitlin <3

P.S. One writer holding me up this month, via her vital piece for 100 Days of Creative Resistance: T Kira Māhealani Madden. Read this, friends. It’s so very good and necessary.

And two books I recently read, & highly recommend: Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda, & Be Not Afraid of My Body by Darius Stewart.