The writing you do, when you can’t write

On self-compassion, productivity and creative work.

Snapshots from the beach walk I took to try to process all my writing feeeeeelings

This morning, I spent an hour sorting through a bunch of documents I’d written with this newsletter in mind. Each week during April, I wrote a couple of hundred words, accumulating ideas which I ultimately didn’t share. This happens a lot with me. I collate little snippets of life, things I’d like to write about someday, though I often don’t actually get around to actually using them. This habit used to (& still sometimes does) make me feel shitty about myself. About how I’m not really committed to my writing because I don’t make the time to pursue every idea. I didn’t share those 400 words on the misery of jet lag, therefore I am a shitty writer and a worthless human. If you’re also a writer/creative person/regular person, the ease with which I can tap into my neural pathways of self-loathing might be familiar. 

I archived most of what I wrote. There were a few nice lines, a few idiosyncratic ideas I’ve added to my ‘to write’ list but I don’t have time to polish them into something worth reading. That said, I do think they served their purpose. As I dragged the docs into the ‘2023 - writing archive’ folder I tried, in the spirit of Marie Kondo, to thank them for their service. (An aside: Marie Kondo now has children and is no-longer an organising evangelist)

I’ve been sick twice in the last 3 months and sandwiched in between, I went to Vietnam with my partner. We had an amazing time. Everytime I describe the trip to someone, I make sure to emphasise that it was a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience. To have the time, energy and money to be able to travel so far and experience so much felt like an enormous privilege. It was also, in a way I’d forgotten, deeply exhausting. Just as the gluey jet-lag passed, I caught covid for the second time. One Tuesday morning, I woke up fine. My nose ran all day and by evening, I felt rotten. When I took a test at 6pm, it was positive almost immediately. 

I have tried to get better at being sick. To adopt those nice theoretical principles they talk about in meditation like: acceptance and self-respect and listening to your body. On day one, I stayed in bed and read two books. I took ibuprofen every few hours and slept as much as I could. I recovered, but slowly. For both my partner and I, it was a nasty bout of illness that brought with it an implacable exhaustion that I’m still struggling to shake. Three and a half weeks later, I still feel the traces of illness in my body. Walking to the bus, I feel my legs begin to drag. After lunch, I sit on my cozy chair to decompress for a moment and find myself unable to get up. My brain, until very recently, was mush.

In the midst of all that, I’ve not so much struggled to write as I’ve struggled to organise myself to publish things. I’ve been writing for so long and it’s such a part of my way of living, that the words come easily most of the time. And when they don’t, I know to take a break. To read. To walk. To let myself rest and recuperate. This is the part where I allude to the painful things that have unfolded in my life, largely as a result of my writing, that I’m not ready to talk about. I wonder about mentioning it at all. I’ve gotten feedback on my writing that it’s unsatisfying for the reader to have something alluded to that isn’t followed explained, a rogue thread left dangling. But I also think of this post about the stresses that exist alongside the chipper content we create. Behind the veneer of the internet, there are private struggles. Things that flare and recede over time, but don’t resolve. I’ve made my peace with that. If you’ve lived through what I have, there will be difficult days and it’s a disservice to both me as the writer, and you as the reader, to pretend otherwise. The world would be better if we were all a little more honest and, not contradictorily, a lot more boundaried.

I am getting better, day by day. It’s not often that you can feel yourself improve in such a tangible way. Buoyed by amino acids and self-compassion, I’ve started a 30 days of yoga practice which was a huge flop this past January and the one before. I feel more hopeful this time. I rearranged my space to make room - just about - for my yoga mat. When I first set up this office last August, I arranged the furniture so I could have the nicest-looking backdrop for zoom meetings. Looking back, I see that it was a deeply silly thing to prioritise! I’ve been thinking about the little things that make a difference like the value of morning sunlight. I went through my list of recipes and made a plan to pull myself out of my meal rut. And I de-cluttered/Spring cleaned because that felt good to do. 

I also cried a lot. On Sunday night, I bawled my eyes out ostensibly because of this movie, but really because I felt worthless about being unable to do anything. It’s deeply ableist to think of myself as being of value only when I am productive, but that is often how I think. I source my self-worth in efficiency, in tasks ticked off lists, in time spent achieving things. Right now, I want to draw a circle about the whole topic and drop it into my ‘therapy - 2023’ folder. 

It was worthwhile for me to write what I did. The practice of saving and compiling and thinking about what I might write kept me connected to it. It was only as I revised this newsletter that I remembered that random scraps were also the basis of the novel I wrote in 2020. Little snippets of life accumulated over more than a decade do, in the end, add up to something. That wasn’t what I thought as I flailed about half-writing newsletters and hating myself, but it’s a useful stake to put in the ground for next time. Even if you aren’t writing what you want to be, your brain is still working. There’s no way to know what it will add up to. I remember hearing an interview with Jenny Odell (maybe this one?) about how, for a period of time, she felt like she was doing nothing. It was only later, when she went back to read her journal from that period, that she saw the ideas that became her first book taking shape on the page. 

If you’re trying to write something, try also to be self-compassionate. It’s not always easy - I did once throw this book across the room in a fit of rage, but it is worth a try.

P.S. In the midst of all of the above, I also had a chat with Claire Byrne about road safety and my Mother’s Death. There was a serious crash that morning too - three fatalities from the same family - which made it all seem rather futile, but here’s the link if you’d like to listen. 

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💬 In the comments, I’d love to hear about the things you do when you just can’t write. How do you get through those moments, and what have they taught you?