CREATIVITY | WRITING

I Didn’t Write for 4 Months and My Writing Style Improved

Here are 6 profound writing lessons I learned in the process

In September of 2021, I took a break from writing.

Why am I lying?

In September of 2021, I stopped writing. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I’d like to pretend it was. To pretend I have control over my life, over the genie who fuels my creativity and her minions. Yes, I’d like to pretend I have authority over my faculties — over my mind, my body, and my soul. But I don’t.

So no, I didn’t take a break from writing in September. I stopped. Like a worn-out heart on a football field, I just stopped.

I wanted to write. I pushed myself to write. But I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. So, I did the only thing I could do. I let go. I stopped trying. I surrendered to my resistance and in the process, I learned the most profound, the most beautiful lessons on writing.

1. If You Don’t Feel like Writing, That’s a Sign That You Should Be Writing

The writing process, I’ve learned, is a neurotic blend of disconnected skills: You’re constantly on. You have to watch yourself. To observe everything around you.

You have to learn how to take in inspiration — how to capture ideas, and how to surrender them to your gods, your inner genie while staying true to the point you’re making.

You have to remember how to invoke your authentic voice. To passively watch as off-point sentences warp themselves around — and suffocate the life out of — your main idea. And you must have faith. You must trust that those off-point sentences, awkward and anxious as they are, will lead you back home to your story. To your main idea.

But mostly, you have to keep your mental illnesses at bay. You have to soothe your demons. To cuddle your anxiety, your depression, and your OCD. You have to constantly conquer the urge to run away from yourself — from your craft.

These are skills we need to master. These are skills that aren’t taught in school. No, these skills, you develop by ‘feeling’ what works. Feelings, when not fed, tend to evaporate.

My feelings about writing evaporated during those 4 months.

The longer I took without writing — the more I procrastinated, the larger my demons grew. I could no longer soothe my mental illness. I forgot how to see ideas and how to write in my voice. I was out of alignment with my gods. For a brief moment, I forgot how to write.

If you don’t feel like writing, that’s a sign you should be writing.

2. And yes, you’re a writer even when you’re not writing.

You’re especially a writer when you’re not writing. A writer is always writing. The writer’s brain never goes to sleep.

“I don’t feel like a writer when I’m not writing,” I once heard a colleague say.

I am sorry what now? How does that work? Seriously I’d like to know. I’d like to take a break from my mind and its never-ending array of creative suggestions. Either I write or I run mad.

I ran mad during those 4 months.

I’d forgotten how to write. I wasn’t getting any new ideas (I was saturated) — and because of it, somewhere deep within, parts of me were decaying. I was dying.

I lost my joy. I was angry with everything. I was cut off from everything — from the very air in my lungs. And then, I fell sick. Week after week. I was no longer a perfect fit for my body. I felt like my skin was tearing away — like suddenly, I became toxic for my soul.

And yes, all this chaos simmered down when I started writing again in January.

3. That Said, Leave Your Ideas Alone before You Work on Them

Allow your ideas to simmer. Allow them to stew in the background of your consciousness. Yes, even if you’re not blocked. Especially if you’re not blocked. Note down whatever comes to you but give it space.

Ideas — your stories are living, breathing organisms. They need time to sprout. They need to propagate through the universe (as thoughts) before they mature within you. They need to go out and bring you the experience — the wisdom you need to bring them to life.

I abandoned my stories for 4 months.

I left my stories alone, and I swear (you can’t make this shit up), I suddenly came upon people — I found myself surrounded by poets, books, Instagram pages, and YouTube videos that were the other half of my entangled ideas.

I tripped over the exact anecdotes my stories needed to come alive.

Leave your ideas alone before you work on them.

4. And You Don’t Have to Write Stories from Beginning To End

Write them the way they come to you. Curve out the midsection first. Write your conclusion if it’s the first thing you see.

There are no rules. The genie — your god — doesn’t care for your puny rules. You have to listen to her. She’s always right. You have to follow the direction in which her wind blows. Every single time.

If you don’t, you’ll get writer’s block. You’ll be cut off from the well out of which your creativity flows.

This, I discovered, is why I was blocked — why I couldn’t write for all those months. I was forcing my god (in all her grandeur) to bend to my whims. And once I surrendered to her playful order, once I stopped forcing my ideas into boring cascades, I started writing again.

5. If You Want to Find Your Writing Voice, Only the Truth Will Set You Free

“You’ve got a distinctive voice,” he said.

“You’ve got a distinctive voice, which is the hardest thing to develop,” a friend said to me after reading the story I published in January. The story I published after my sabbatical.

“Thank you, “I replied.

Maybe I should’ve said more.

“It’s simple,” I should’ve said. “Good writing — having a distinctive voice — is about being yourself!”

But we don’t know how to be ourselves. We are always editing, always putting on a show. We are always twisting and twitching and tearing ourselves apart.

Be as depressed, be as joyful, be as anxious, be as playful in your writing as you feel. Don’t edit yourself. Allow all your thoughts — and I mean all of them — onto the blank page. Abuse the rules of language (You will edit later). Embrace that Em dash and those parenthetical statements. This is what has worked for me — this in addition to writing quickly.

“In quickness is truth,” David Majister once wrote. In quickness hides your writing voice

So, write as quickly as you can. Write in bursts of energy. Energy = truth. Energy = your most authentic self. Tired writers create tired sentences. Tired writers are writers who can’t be whole, who can’t be themselves. Tired writers are writers who can’t write in their voice.

6. And Here Is the Easiest Way to Keep A Notebook

Use everything you have. Use everything you are.

Use everything from that conversation you accidentally eavesdropped, to lines, paragraphs, entire scenes from your favorite TV show. Yes, the latter is something I do.

I watched an episode of the TV series Ginny and Georgia and fell in love with an essay from one of the episodes. I was obsessed with it. So I wrote it down — by hand. And to this day, certain poetic progressions, rhythms — the music from that essay still runs through my writing style.

Sometimes, I’m blocked. At times I’m stuck on a sentence I don’t like. But at that moment, I remember a better construction, a better verb-noun composition from one of the essays or poems or random conversations that I wrote down. And just like that, my writer’s block evaporates.

Use everything you have. Use everything you are. That’s how you keep a notebook.

Final Thoughts: Creativity Is Not about Creating Things

I mean it is, but not really. It’s not saying or writing words in the most interesting order. It’s not about painting pictures or dancing or singing. Creativity is about listening.

It’s about hearing the truth. It’s about seeing what is there — whatever that may be. It’s about communicating that thing in the only way you know how: with your songs, your paintbrushes, and your words.

But when you can’t hear your songs anymore, when your words have vanished from your breath — when you can’t create anymore, take a break. It’s okay. You won’t die. Your craft won’t die. But you will come back, stronger. Trust me. I did it, and here I still am.

Assumpta Nalubowa is a professional feeler of emotions. Every time she feels an emotion — any emotion —, a leaf on the lemon tree outside her bedroom window turns into a one hundred dollar bill. If you enjoyed this story, check out this one next.

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