A lot to say, a lot of ways to say it

Getting past a creative block is about momentum

There are days (like today) when I’m not entirely sure what to write.

That’s going to come as a surprise to some readers, because it seems like I’m constantly writing and posting and publishing one thing or another. But the truth is, as much as I’m kind of an “idea factory,” there are just days when the ideas are a bit thicker, flow a bit slower, stick to some spot just outside my brain so they don’t come as easily as I’d like.

This has happened a lot in my life and career.

The early days had a lot of this, really. I’d sit down, fired up and ready to knock out the next great American novel or the next trending blog post or just the next encouraging letter to a friend or someone I admire, and... meh. Fizzle.

I don’t think of this as “writer’s block.” I don’t really believe that’s a thing, which may sound a bit weird (and even annoying, if you’re a writer who believes they’ve suffered this malady). I think that the conditions we call writer’s block are real, and can definitely stymie the flow of our creative work. But to me it’s not so much a “block” as a “reluctance.”

This is not to say that someone suffering writer’s block is lazy or reluctant to do the writing. That only applies to some, and only part of the time. I’ve been in that boat, a time or two.

What I really mean is that we writers sometimes get log jammed because we have too many ideas. Or the ideas we have don’t seem to add up to a story. Or the ideas don’t seem very good. Sometimes we’re right about all of that. And so we’re reluctant to try to sort it all out.

Think of it like being thirsty and knowing that someone tossed an unopened bottle of water into the sewer. It’s not impossible to get, it just means getting kind of dirty and stinky. How thirsty could I be, really?

I have a folder on my computer that is filled with what I call “Thirds.” These are story starters, false starts on novels and short stories that didn’t get past the first two or three pages or chapters. They are a plague to me, a weight on my soul. Because they represent a start, a stop, and an abandonment of an idea. I don’t like unfinished business.

But something kind of miraculous happens from time to time. If I find myself really wanting to write something, and don’t have a proper idea, I will sometimes dip back into those Thirds and see what I find.

Do I grab one and finish it? Sometimes.

More often I look at half a dozen, realize these aren’t great, but hey! I have an idea! I’ll steal this from this story, and that from that story, and Frankenstein them together into something new and interesting!

I did something like this with my first thriller novel, The Coelho Medallion. I had been dared by my friend and fellow author Nick Thacker to write the sort of book he was writing. I had only written science fiction and fantasy up to that point, but I felt confident I could write a thriller. So, I gave it a shot.

Except I didn’t quite have an idea. I didn’t know for sure what would make a good thriller, and I wasn’t coming up with much.

So I dipped back into those Thirds. I pilfered several of them for elements I thought were interesting, I combined that with some stuff I’d come across while reading and watching YouTube. And boom! I had a story! Dan Kotler and his companions were born, and my career took a new and very interesting turn.

What if I hadn’t had those Thirds, though?

Writing is weird. It’s a machine that depends on momentum. If you can get it moving, it will usually carry you through to where you are trying to go. The trick, then, is “get it moving.”

That’s when I do something like I did just now.

I didn’t know for sure what I wanted to write, but I knew I wanted to write something. So, I started with what I had. “I’m not entirely sure what to write.”

There! I got the thing moving! Words are on the screen! Now I just had to do the next thing. The “what happened next” bit.

And I did that.

And then the next.

And soon, a topic emerged.

That is how writing works. The start is more important than all the rest, and if you can’t think of where to start, just pick a direction and start walking. Eventually a destination makes itself known.

Life has to be like that too. I believe that. My life has been a series of sitting there facing the blank page, not sure what I wanted to do, what I should do, what I was even capable of doing. So, I just started doing something. And then the next thing became obvious. And the next. And so on until it was all on the page.

Does it always work? What about the reader? Is it meaningful and moving to them? Does it matter?

You’ll have to tell me. But I can say, 30 minutes ago I had no idea what I was going to write. And now I rather like what I’ve written.

That book I mentioned above is just one of  70+ books I’ve written. Almost all of them started with me improvising the first line and going from there. So far, so good. Go find one and tell me what you think. Visit https://kevintumlinson.com/books

A NOTE AT THE END

Yesterday I reconnected with an old friend. He’s fallen on some hard times, but is in rapid recovery. There’s a lot of that going around.

I told him about some of the trouble I’ve had over the past year, and the impact its had on my writing. I’m recovering, too, and things are much better. But the level of work I do now is nowhere near the quantity I was producing just a few years ago. I’ve slowed down. I’m picking back up, but I’ve lost a lot of that momentum I once had. I’m starting over, in effect.

He commented on how I was the busiest guy he ever met. And I joked, “I was a man with a lot to say, and a lot of ways to say it.”

That’s still true, really. But what I’m learning is that maybe, just maybe, it’s ok to leave some things unsaid. It’s ok to narrow the channels of communication down to just the crucial bits.

I write. I podcast. I make videos. I speak to live audiences at events. I still do all the things. I just don’t do them all the time anymore.

Burnout is a real thing, and a real problem. But it isn’t a permanent disability. It’s taken me about a year to finally start recovering from it, but I am recovering.

So on days like this, when I don’t quite know what to say, I give myself some grace. It’s ok to not say anything, from time to time.

You probably needed to hear that, too.