Year of Win, Day 30: How I’m Getting my Mojo Back

Greetings all! Sorry for the drought at Year of Win. You ever have one of those months when everything seems to happen at once? Yeah, me too. I’m trying to keep some positivity, but I didn’t really feel it the last few weeks, so I decided to go dark rather than sound like Catastrophe Kendra.


But now I’m feeling better! Maybe it’s because (brief ROW80 check) that I’m finally cracking my writer’s block.

Wait...let's back up a few months. So, I did something stupid—I let myself get burned out. I think many of us reach this place, about 3 -5 years in, where we’ve been writing hard, thinking about nothing else, when we hit this wall. We remember there’s a world outside, that we have families, friends, lives. We’ve also been working so hard that the words just retreat to the corners of our brains. At least, that’s how it’s been for me. (For an awesome perspective on getting caught in the writing vortex—read Claire Legrand’s blog…it has a unicorn—truly a WIN!  She also has another amazing unicorn blog post about self doubt which I've read more than a few times recently.)

After hitting the wall...well, I’ll be fully honest—I took a break. A big one. I focused on my kids more. I spent time with my husband. I ironed. I watched a Big Bang Theory marathon night after night. I didn’t feel motivated. Whenever I sat at my laptop, guilt ate my brain and fear whirled in my stomach. Then my fingers froze and I ended up staring at the screen or spending all my time on twitter, wondering where those words went. It’s a terrifying feeling. I’ve had brief bouts of writer’s block before, but nothing like this. It’s never been so bad that I went weeks without feeling like writing. And it didn’t help that parts of my support system weren’t working well. There’s also this unfathomable feeling of failure. I haven’t nailed a publishing contract yet and I was so sure I would’ve by now. It’s hard to keep writing in the face of that, to keep reminding myself that success happens in its own time, and that I have many other options if only I'd just try.

So what finally helped? My husband. He said, “Maybe you’re trying too hard. You used to write because you loved it. Now you write because you feel like it’s expected. No wonder it’s hard.”

You know what? He’s right. I wasn’t writing for love. I was writing for “must.” And it drained my creativity. I was so worried about being perfect, I couldn’t write just to see where the story went. I was polishing my prose before it even landed on the page. In short, I need to dare to suck. I also have to re-learn how to write for love.

The last few days, I’ve done just that. I literally cringed at some of the stuff leaving my keyboard, but it didn’t matter. There were words there. The story was moving forward. And I met my writing goal both days. Baby steps. I can polish the heck out of this sucker later. Right now, it’s more important to actually create it. To quote my husband again, “It’s a process, not an event.” It’ll take time, but I know eventually I’ll get fully in the groove again. I just have to keep trying.

Maybe this post is TMI, but I think it’s okay to admit I’m fallible. Maybe if I do, others in the same dark place won’t feel as alone as I did….even when we aren’t alone.

Thanks to all of you for your support; it means a lot to me. Having writerly friends makes all the difference…and that’s full of WIN!