When it feels like everything is too hard and jagged and cutting into me, it's hard to write. Telling a story is like breathing, I need it, but sometimes it's too hard to breathe and the only story that I can tell is the one I'm trying to survive.
I’m talking about how writing is my job and like any other job, when it’s time to go to work, sometimes I just have to suck it up and clock in. Does that mean I’ll sit in front of my computer for whatever period of that day is my designated writing time and stare at it? Yeah, sometimes it does. And I’m an emotional person who loves writing. Sometimes I only get a handful of words to add to the story. Sometimes the world fades away and a few thousand words come out and writing chews up some of my stress. Other times, I recognize that what’s going on in my real life makes it hard to breathe, let alone get to that place where words come out. On those days, writing through means acknowledging that I have to breathe if I want to live and the words can wait.
Jobs have sick days because sometimes, showing up is the worst thing I can do. (Seriously, it’s flu season, please rest at home.) The most important thing about taking a break to breathe is to remember as the tightness eases that writing is a job and going back to it is a matter of discipline and getting back to your writing routine is how I keep going. Just like starting out a new project, getting back to an interrupted one means getting back into my characters’ heads and getting them back into mine.
I don't usually do much editing as I go, but a project I've set aside or returning from a writing break because life happened means I need to regain my writing head space. I start by rereading my story until there's space in my head to add to it. It takes time to rebuild momentum and enrobe myself in the story so I can add words to it until it is finished, but I do what it takes to get back there. Sometimes I'll write something else, something fresh to make my fingers remember what it's like to put words into a document and make a story out of them.
This is possibly my most important about writing through.
Writing can be a wonderful stress relief or a place to escape for a while just like reading can. Or it can be one stressor too many. Sometimes life is just too much and needs to be handled. If you are in a place where this is happening, writing through this season very likely means not writing at all. Before you dive back into your fictional world, if your real world is falling down or you are falling into the folds of your own mind, make sure you’ve taken the time to get the help you need to take care of you. The story will never go anywhere if the author isn’t there to write it.
Take care of yourself. Ask for whatever help you need. Advocate for you. You matter a lot. You have stories to tell. If you’re not here to tell them, your story will go untold. Write through something like this by making sure you’re going to be here to keep telling your stories.