Using Humility To Break Through Writing Block

Anyone who knows me has heard me brag that I don’t suffer from writer’s block. Until the day that I do. This week it snuck up on me, though if I’d paid attention, I would have seen it coming. It wore a coat of many colors and a sign with my name on it in twelve-foot letters.

It all started when Medium announced their payment plan changes, and my anxiety level ramped up from there. It occurred during the height of the California firestorms, confusing me. I had a hard time sorting out why I’d wake up with my heart rate racing. Things really ramped up when the town next to my daughter’s sent out evacuation orders.

Her power was out, and I couldn’t reach her by phone or text. Did she know fire was coming her way? Forget writing, I had a possible life or death situation on my hands. She was my life, and people were dying in the fire.

Sunday was lost to me until we connected, and I knew she and her husband were safe. But my focus was shot, and I couldn’t seem to get it back.

The first news of the new payout sent me into a death spiral of its own. Then, out of the blue, I caught World Series madness when I joined my daughter and SIL for dinner Tuesday night. Bigger sports nuts you won’t find on the planet, and they got me hooked on rooting for the Nats on Wednesday, even though baseball isn’t my game. So I had my eye on the clock and quit work early, something I never do.

Somehow, everything in my life was off-kilter, and it showed up in my writing, or lack thereof. I got one article to go viral, and my numbers began to crawl back up, but as far as writing anything meaningful was concerned? As they say in my home town, fuhgedaboudit.

This morning, I tried a little snark in a piece, but it just sounded sophomoric. Then I got an inspiration to go with something deep on relationships. But I couldn’t stop myself from checking stats to see if they had stabilizied after the rocky beginning to the week. I never did this before the change when I only had to worry about Wednesday’s earnings.

My idea was good, but the article was all over the place, and I couldn’t get it to settle down on a coherent thought. Was I losing it? Was it old age, my failing brain? I couldn’t let myself go down that rabbit hole, or I might not crawl out.

So I did the next best thing and decided to go to the grocery store and get something for dinner. Forget writing for the day. I’d promised myself to post an article a day, but today was a bust.

However, leaving my apartment was my best idea of the day. Because it gave me a shot of exactly what I needed, humility to get me over my pity party.

I live in a good neighborhood, but in San Francisco I’m not far from seeing homeless people. On the way to Trader Joe’s for the makings of Chicken Quesadillas to eat while I watched the 9er game tonight, I saw a man digging into the trash can on the corner for his dinner.

Another man was busy tying up his belongings in a rolling cart. Altogether he had as many possessions all told as I typically bring down for a week’s worth of laundry.

Those two gentlemen gave me exactly what I needed to fix my writing block, my attack of feeling stuck because I was worried about my earnings and my reach on Medium. A good dose of humility and gratitude for all I have. And to tie it up in a nice bow, I checked my mail on the way back to my apartment. I’d received a check from a client, enough to cover my rent for the month.

Unlike the two men I’d passed on my way to buy my groceries, I was assured of a comfortable bed tonight, a big TV to watch the home team hopefully go 8 and 0, and I’d picked up some chips to snack on while I watched my favorite sport.

Yeah, I have worries and responsibilities. But get over yourself, I said. Put them in perspective. Don’t let them rob you of your ability to do your job. My trip to the grocery store broke through my writing block. My mail delivery made me realize my tendency to blow things out of proportion, especially compared to people who have real problems.

Unlike those two men, and hundreds more like them, I have a job to do. I’m a fulltime writer. I show up every day, not just when I feel like it, when I don’t have other things on my mind. I know that, but something got in the way today.

So I need to mark it down on my forehead. When I see myself getting stuck, and remind myself how lucky I am to have my privileged life. My home, my comforts, and most of all, the work that I love.

They didn’t have their hands out and weren’t asking me for anything. I didn’t recognize them as one of the regulars in the neighborhood and only hope they found what they needed tonight because I don’t know how to repay them for the stark reminder of how some people struggle for just the basics.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be back at it, me and my muse. Coming up with something I hope will charm my readers, entertain them, perhaps even enlighten them. And I’ll owe a thanks to the men on the street who gave me the reminder I needed, a dose of humility that jumpstarted my writing again.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.https://psiloveyou.xyz/its-okay-to-love-difficult-people-ab19b1f2d0de