So, I’ve been writing reviews for this website, but I’ve known for a while that I also wanted to blog about my writing process. After all, I started this site with the intention of it being my primary author page, where someday I will have information about my books, etc. I didn’t really know how to jump in, though. I don’t have a book deal or even an agent yet, and I’ve been really unsure whether anyone would actually want to read about my writing process.
Then, over the past couple of weeks, writer’s block struck. Call it a burn out, call it a minor depressive episode, but a rose by any other name still draws blood with those thorns.
It sucked. It stung. For the first time in my life I found myself thinking about things like “how am I ever going to make a living with my writing” and “oh God, That’s how taxes work?”
I want to take a minute to acknowledge the fact that it takes a mindblowing amount of privilege to be 23 and only just now starting to worry about these things. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have the support system I do, and I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to write without it.
I’ve never had a full time day job, partially because my spouse supports me while I write full time and partially because my anxiety made it hard to work anywhere when I was younger, and now no one really wants to hire someone who is 23 and has never held a “real” job.
Ok so backstory over, here I am watching my email refresh over and over while I wait for news, and it hits me that I’m only good at this one thing. I have dedicated my life to writing from the time I was in elementary school. There is literally not one single profitable skill I have, because I’ve spent every waking moment on this one. And it hit me all at once that I might not ever make it.
Like, ever.
And then another thing occurred to me: I might make it, might get published, and still not actually ever make as much money as I could have if I’d gone into teaching. In case you don’t know (somehow) teachers are grossly underpaid. The idea that I might be pouring my soul into something that often pays even Less? Too horrible to even consider.
Cue a multi-day cry fest in which I question every life choice I’ve made since age nine.
Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that no matter how scared I am of failure, I am still a writer. For two weeks I’ve allowed myself to toss out my rigid schedule, stop forcing it, and let the creative well fill back up. I realized that sometimes the only way I can get through a slump is to stop pushing and pulling myself and just take a breath. Look around, absorb the scenery of the Slump. Stop and smell the roses instead of trying to force myself through the middle of the thicket.
So I guess that’s the first piece of writing advice I have to share: give yourself permission to be where you are, even if where you are is the Slump. When it’s time to get moving again, you’ll know.
-Kat
Kat Pollock 