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Showing posts from October, 2015

On not writing and the creative life

I came across this piece by novelist Daniel Jose Older on not writing every day. And my heart cheered Yes! Yes. Yes to the nth degree. Earlier this month I had space in my schedule. School for the kids had started; I had no medical writing assignments in sight. I will write , I thought. Who knows when I'll have this time again? I had nothing to write about. No story in my head. No matter—don't other writers just sit at the blank screen and stuff just pours out of them? Don't they say that if you just sit your butt in the chair and force yourself then the words will come because it's just work and willpower and moving those fingers on the keyboard? Doesn't everyone say shitty first drafts and just keep going and just do it --? I tried. It was a disaster. Because sometimes, as Daniel JoseOlder writes in his essay , the story you're working on just isn't ready to be written yet. Because, as he says, "brainstorming is part of writing