Writing When You Don't Feel It

We've all been there; we have to write something, either because something is due soon, or because we want very much to be writers, and we all know that the way to be a writer is to write. In a perfect world, the muse would be there to layer us with inspiration at every turn, and every word would be as spun gold, poetic in its majesty. The transition from thought to prose would be musical in its clean, beautiful harmony, and all the writer would really need to do is marvel at how elegantly his or her thoughts are wrought.

It's never like that.

Instead, for every one time where it feels like music and joy to sit down at write, there's always a moment where you feel the pressure of a deadline, internal or external, and you realize that you just don't feel like saying anything. You don't have anything that is your own to say. But you can't just say nothing, because, well, that's just not what writers do. That's what other people do. People who don't write. People who only say "yeah, I got this idea for a novel, wish I had the time to write it out" for years and years and years.

Then there's the fear that maybe you were just a one-hit wonder. That one good thing you wrote, that you really, really liked, maybe that was all you had in you. The composition that made you think maybe you could try your hand at this writing thing beyond just "doing it for school." But when it comes time to produce the "next big thing," you feel yourself despair when you realize that your new work isn't as good as your last one. It's not as easy as the last one. You start to wonder if that was the only masterpiece you'll ever manage, that all you had to say was drawn out to quickly, too early, and your career is over before it began.

Fortunately, in my experience, at least, any of those anxieties have yet to be proven true. Because even if it never feels any easier, even if it seems to get harder and harder, the reality will manifest itself when you look back on what you've done, years later, and you have the dubious pleasure of being able to scoff at what you once thought was a masterpiece. You get better at your craft, little by little, and the work improves along with you, so slowly you cannot see it in anything but the longest perspectives.

It reminds me of an anecdote that I keep close to my heart. It was something I pulled out of a manifesto on the joy and terror artists face when they attempt to paint, although, shamefully, the name of the artist who wrote it escapes my memory.

A young musician approaches the master and says in despair, "I can hear the music so much better in my head than I can create with my fingers." With a gentle smile, the master replies, "What makes you think that feeling ever changes?"