The Slump

I was worrying.  I was fretting.  It’s something that I do sometimes.  I get an idea in my head, and I can’t let it go.  So the fact that I couldn’t get any words on the page was upsetting.  More than that, I was worried about how I was going to write those words.  I would try, I would start, and I’d hate every single word that I had written.  Until I hit this critical mass point, and I couldn’t stop all my crazy from spewing out into an email to a friend.  He talked me down, and then he gave me a challenge.

And suddenly, miraculously, I put words on the page.  In an hour and a half, I wrote 2K words.  Just like that.   Like I hadn’t had a barrier in my brain that was causing me issues.  Like it was no big deal.

An assignment and a deadline was all it took to get me to have some motivation.  Suddenly, it all coalesced in my brain.  Some support to shore me up, and I was able to write.  And I’ve been able to keep writing, to keep the story going.

I think it probably happens to most writers.  Those days when nothing’s working right, when the story just isn’t happening.  I’ve had them before.  And it always sort of freaks me out.  All the what ifs start racing through my very over active imagination.  What if I’ve lost my ability?  What if I’ve lost all my ideas?  What if I can’t ever write another story again?

But the idea are always there.  They are always triggered by the weirdest things.  And sometimes they aren’t meant to be on the page.  But sometimes they are.  This time around, all I needed was a little nudge.  And fortunately, I had someone willing to provide it.

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget just how lucky I am.  But this will serve as a wonderful reminder.  And I’ll pull it out when the next slump hits.