When You're in a Slump 😑

...What do you do when you're in the midst of one?

I’ve been in a writing slump for most of this year.

Young Woman With a Book, by Edouard Manet (1875)

I know why, I’m pretty sure… There have been a LOT of changes and decisions that have had to be made in my real (not online) life, stuff too detailed and uninteresting to unpack here. I’ve found that this process has taken up a sizable portion of my brain cells, the ones that typically fuel my writing and give me the words I need to say. I’ve had SO many meetings, conversations, brainstorming sessions, long walks with Kyle, prayer and more prayer, all about this one thing going on in our life. So much so that when I finally sit down to write, I’m depleted. …I’ve got nothing.

I’m tempted to apologize for this, as though you need a regular dose of my thoughts in your life. But I know better than this, after doing this for fifteen-plus years now. The internet tempts us to pride by telling us we’re more important than we actually are. It gives us a veneer of a pedestal, an unstable plinth from which we can stand in a virtual marketplace and provide the illusion that we’re a statue worth encircling. I’m not saying this with a faux-humble voice, to get you to argue otherwise — “No, no, you’re great; don’t think so low of yourself!” I’m actually not, and you shouldn’t think lowly of yourself either. Honest to God, we’re really and truly not that important. People are meant to live ordinary lives, so it’s good when we recognize the cheap plastic that our platforms are made of. It’s a very, very good thing that we’re all ordinary humans.

But this hasn’t meant I’m not frustrated at my writing slump, because it’s a thing I love to do, it’s a craft that helps pay our bills, and it’s a tool that helps me clear out the muck and spit-shine what it is I actually believe and think. Not having had it much lately has made me feel blergh.

This week I asked fellow writers what it is they do when they’re in a writing funk, and their answers have been interesting.