What You Do

The air, like over-creamed coffee has been thick enough to drink for the past several days. Honestly, the air has been bad for at least several days each week for over a month. Finally, yesterday, it seemed clearer. I’ve walked outside a few times in the past weeks, but the days of exercising inside have really been getting to me. Finally, yesterday, L.E. and I headed outside. It felt glorious, my mood immediately lifted. The sky above was morning glory blue, the sun jabbed at my eyes but I headed up the street full of hope.

It’s been a tough few weeks with several things putting a damper on my spirits, but the walk helped as did advice from several fronts, including my own. For the last little while, I’ve had this nagging pressure to find a story idea for a novel. On the one hand, that’s great. It’s been so long since I’ve had any desire to tackle anything as big and intense as a novel. On the other, I’m still not getting particularly excited about any of the ideas I had before I was sick or since. That’s unusual for me. I felt like I needed to hurry and search up something because of this nagging pressure.

And as I search, I start pushing. It came to me as I was e-mailing a friend that that was exactly the wrong approach. I know better, too. I talked it over with my husband. I talked about it to Maddie Rose and Zoie. L.E. and I talked about it as we walked. I know what you do when you’re blocked. I know ‘cause I’ve been here before. Every writer has.

You write what you love. You write what you must. You don’t search for it, but you look for it. You’re open to what comes to you. You back off and let it in when it comes. You go out into the world and get experiences, you wait, you listen, and watch, and wait. With patience, with knowing, it is coming and while you wait, you write, and edit, and work on what you have. That’s what you do.