I've had days where I've struggled, but until Friday I honestly hadn't faced a day where I felt so completely blank. It scared me. I had visions of never writing another meaningful word.
I grabbed my copy of Bonnie Goldberg's Room to Write and deserted my laptop for the comfort of the couch. Unable to settle on a writing exercise, I opened my notebook and just started writing. Appropriately enough, I ended up writing a scene where my main character wandered, lost, through a city's streets and wound up at an unexpected destination.
Will I ultimately use much of that work? Probably not. But pushing forward kept me from a sense of failure and even gave me a few ideas for moving on. Saturday's work went well, and today I wrote twice as much as usual in half the time.
I'm not one to quote the Bible, but I've had a handwritten notecard of Proverbs 14:23 tacked to my bulletin board since I was a college student: "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." I truly believe the work of writing in itself is a reward. Even on difficult days, I love what I'm doing, and without that work, I would feel impoverished.
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