Discomfort With Not Writing

It can take time to get your creative work flowing. Give it that time.

A lot of days, I stare at a blank screen for a not-small amount of time before writing anything down. Part of me always thinks, you’ve done this thousands of times – it shouldn’t be hard. But most of the time, most of me remembers that creative work is always work. Resistance to making is ever present. And so I look at the screen until my discomfort at not writing is greater than my discomfort with writing.

This is one thing I try to impart to my creative students. The point is not to be perfect, the point it to rack up a streak of making things and then that use that streak to motivate you to keep making.

More bars, I tell my composition students. Practice log streak, I tell my performing students.

Be your own accountability partner. Deal with the discomfort until your creative work is inevitable.