Glad For Nothing

You know how it is when you sit down to write and you feel like you’ve got nothing. It’s a crappy feeling, but maybe you start typing anyway because how can you have nothing? You had something yesterday and you’re still the same writer and this is the same story. It doesn’t make any sense and so you put sentences on the page, and a sentence is a sentence, right? Those sentences are something, aren’t they?

Except you still feel like you’ve got nothing even though you technically put something on the page. Oh, you hate the something that’s really nothing. You’re a something that’s nothing. No, that’s not true. You’ve been at this long enough that you know you can’t start thinking that. That’s the kind of thinking that shuts the door and turns out the light. You can’t think it even though it feels true. You can’t look at it even though it seems like a problem you need to solve. You can’t touch it even though this lousy truth that isn’t a truth feels like all you’ve got.

Better to do nothing. Sometimes nothing is the best thing. Let the fire of self-loathing die of neglect. Now you’re glad for the nothing because at least you’re still, at least you’re not headed somewhere you’d never want to be. It’s good to be glad for something, even if it’s nothing. Now you’re starting to feel good in your own skin, now you can hear your heart beat. It’s like you forgot it was beating, though it always had been. You were never hollow; you just weren’t listening.

You don’t remember when the new idea came. You don’t remember because you weren’t looking for it, weren’t needing it, weren’t caring whether it came or not. You looked up and realized you were writing again. For a moment you can remember how you had felt as though you’d never write another meaningful word, but it already seems like a longtime ago, a lifetime ago, so distant it feels as though it was suffered by someone other than you.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com