It’s true. I don’t write every day. Hell, I barely can write a couple of times a week. Over the years, I’ve tried my damnedest to, at minimum, journal every day because, well, at least that’s something, right? A quick synopsis of my day, or a commentary on some trivial event, or a kernel of some thought I need to unpack. I string the days together for awhile, do a really great job of writing in there every single day.

Then, BAM! Six, or 16, days roll on by, and I lead off with, “Well, so much for that run,” or some variation of “Man, I’m really bad at this writing thing.”

I spend a lot of time berating myself for not being a “better writer,” wondering why in goodness’s name I can’t do this “right.” My voice of self-criticism is an awfully loud one, and I think she has the power to scare away my inspiration, my will to write, my desire to create something different.

And then I read this article this morning from Electric Literature, answering a reader’s question on whether he or she is still a writer even if he or she doesn’t write every day.

And the resounding answer was, “Yes! Of course!”

The article is broken down into things you can do while you’re not writing, that ultimately help your writing, and it really spoke to me. When I’m not writing, I have more time for reading, for experiencing, and for thinking. Any and all of those three things can serve for fodder for future scribbles. If I’m not reading, then I’m not challenging and expanding my writer’s tool kit. If I’m not experiencing, then I’m not living life and giving myself something to write about. If I’m not thinking, then I’m not percolating new ideas or patterns or coming to absorb those readings or understand those experiences. And if I’m not doing any of that, well, then, what’s there to write about?

Creativity is, and always be, an incredibly individual pursuit. What works for one writer completely stalls and holds up the next. And let’s not even talk about the process of the third! It takes all kinds of crafts and artists to bring beauty into this sometimes (okay, often) ugly world, and the comparisons between two artists is something that hampers that beautiful, creative offering.

At the most basic level, each of us, every single human on this piece of rock, has a story and we’re all trying to figure out a way to explain it and/or share it. The creatives feel their stories, experiencing the words or the music or the drawings individually and completely. So, if my story and creative process is unique, then how come I’m so worried I’m “doing it wrong?” In theory, there should be no wrong way. Because, in the end, it will have culminated in something worthy of being in the world, even if I took a different route to get there, right?

So, I’m told.

But still I struggle with this feeling of being a fraud, even with a double major in Creative Writing and English Literature. I literally majored in writing and reading and still, still, I find myself fighting against my creativity. To the point that I’ve wondered if I am even a creative person at all or if it was a lie I told myself.

This article this morning, though, released a weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying. I do things differently than other writers, but that’s okay. That doesn’t make me any less of a writer. Because when I do write, it feels so good, a tantalizing piece of my soul that I can play with, hear what she has to say. It’s a cathartic process that somehow clears the debris of my muddled brain and gives me some semblance of clarity, especially if I’m mulling over a specific trouble or quandary.

So, while I might not write every day, I do still write. I do turn away from my craft when the rest of my world gets overwhelmingly chaotic, but I always, always come back to it. And maybe that’s the point: it’s my returning that makes me the writer, not so much the fact that I don’t write every day.

What’s your favourite way to get back into your writing process? I’d love to hear it.

Until next time.

-kw.