I love writers who don't write. They make me look so productive. However, I can't stand it when these non-writing writers don't write and then proceed to complain that they are not writing. This produces nothing. At worst, it further enhances the un-writer's malaise. At best it drums up the camaraderie of other writers who are either likewise not writing or are writing but sympathize. And they sympathize because at the end of the day, any writer who's been writing for longer than five minutes has been there.
"There" is that place where nothing happens. Creativity goes untapped, ideas are stunted and blank pages remain... well... blank. "There," is no place for a writer. And as a writer when you are not "there", you certainly don't want to talk about being there. At least I don't. It's uncomfortable.
I like to live creatively in that little place called denial. I'd much prefer to not think about not writing. Probably because I like writing. It's a part of me - a huge part of who I am. Like most writers, I self-identify through my writing. So loss of writing, non-writing, would damage my concept of self.
So, I choose not to go "there." And I truly believe that writers have that choice.
A writer can choose a state of un-writing just as they can choose to end, what I believe to be a self-imposed position of not writing. Complaining about not writing is a waste of creative energy and time that could, if the writer so chose, be put to far better use actually writing.
It may sound harsh; but this is the voice of experience talking. Stop complaining and WRITE! No doubt we've all heard that often the best solution to a given problem is the simplest. Perhaps in no other art is that concept more true than in the writing arts. The stringing together of words with any kind of complexity first requires simplicity. The simplicity of action. By simply doing a writer can undo what they've not done.
I can promise that writing just one well formed paragraph will make you feel far better than hours of moaning about not writing.
Step up. Shut up. And WRITE.
