Writing Advice: Getting Back On It

Today’s writing advice question comes from @KalCobalt, who asks “Let’s say you’re a hardcore author who, by circumstance, can’t write for a decade. What’s the first thing you would do when you could get back to work?”

Oh man. I picked this question because I find it a really interesting exercise. The idea of not being able to write for a decade is to me a fairly traumatic one, considering I’m writing more or less every day at this point. But I’ve had friends who have gone through stretches like this, and I’ve written before about how living through the latter half of the last decade has made writing more difficult, so I think I can get my head around it enough to talk about this a little in a way that might be helpful.

I was going to start by talking about the different ways one might be prevented from writing, either by external factors (having to take care of a family member, newborn or aging; losing income and having to work extra jobs for a while; prolonged illness or incapacity) or internal (depression, grief, etc.). I was thinking about whether or not my mind would be able to think about stories, but upon reflection I think that if I were able to imagine stories without being able to write them down, I wouldn’t come out the other end with a decade’s worth of stories. I’d go over one over and over again, or I’d get bored and lose the ability to focus on stories.

So what would I do when whatever had been happening stopped happening? I can think of two things.

One friend of mine who couldn’t write for years because of severe depression got therapy and treatment, and when the depression became manageable, they returned to the projects they’d been working on prior to the depression. That feels to me like one course. I’ve got so many things going on, and I’ve definitely picked things up again after years away (the New Tibet story in Patterns in Frost comes to mind, or the first Calatians book) to finish them. I could imagine the comfort that would come from rediscovering old stories I’d wanted to get to and never did, the inspiration of bringing new experience to them, and the satisfaction from finishing them. So I think that’s probably the first thing I’d do.

But I can’t get past the thought that being prevented from writing for a decade would be a traumatic experience on top of whatever other trauma was stopping me from writing. And one of the things that I try to do in my writing is share my experiences and provide a sense of community to people. There are undoubtedly other people going through their own traumas out there, and I think I would try to figure out a way to write about mine, not just to work it out in my own head, but to let other people know that they’re not alone. Even if I couldn’t write about it directly, I’d try to find one of my characters I could put into a similar experience to address it through fiction, as I’ve done with a lot of my own experiences. This definitely isn’t something everyone wants to do; some people are more private than others. But the question was “what would you do,” so that’s what I’d do.

Either way, I’d get back to writing as soon as I could. I’d definitely be rusty, but I wouldn’t be worrying about writing something publishable right away. I’d just want to get back to the experience of crafting stories and communicating with other people through fiction.

I hope that helps! And I hope that if any of you out there aren’t able to write—or do whatever you love—that you get back to it soon.