Day 27 Slice of Life – building creativity??

This month of writing has been hard. Way harder than I expected. I have done this writing challenge many times. I have written about all the things I do to keep writing. I have always made it through. I have always written everyday for the month of March. This year was a fail for a couple reasons. One I have missed three days – not much really but still not what I had wanted. Two my writing this year has been repetitive without much to say. I seem to be lost in a land of no words or at least little to say.

Actually, there is lots to say but I have chosen to censor myself. I have chosen to not write about the war in Ukraine, the Mpls teachers strike, the pandemic and politics. I read and hear enough of that and I am guess the rest of you have as well.

This leaves me to write about my daily life – Little Man, garden and construction. All of which I wrote about most of the winter. That worked fine when writing on Tuesday only but once you move that to everyday it get pretty boring with nothing really to say.

I like to have my posts be both personal, things happening here, and global, topics that others might be able to relate to. It is a trick to find a way to open up your personal life to a question that might help others to reflect on their life or daily events.

The past years Challenges have given me a push in my writing and as the month of March has gone on. I have found more and more to write about. The idea being that writing daily builds your writing muscle so you find it easier to find topics and that the words flow on to the page with ease. Welp – not this year.

For me, it is like a well ran dry and I feel like I have said what I have to say. “All Done!”

Ok – I know that is not true I have always had too much to say, too many stories to tell but for some reason this year the stories are gone and I found myself just needing to be quiet. I have often thought of just posting a simple phrase or a poem I have read just to put something out there. I have used poems as prompts to get started writing but that does not even seem to work this year. I am lost in a writers block.

There are four days to go and I am going to dig deep for a way to keep this going. I want to honor my commitment to myself and to the community here. I need to find a way out of this writing slump.

One of the ways that artists help themselves return to their work is by setting a goal or topic for the next day. If you come to the page with a topic already in mind it helps. The thinking is I just need to write a few words about __________. Or I just need to paint a part of this plants leaves. Or I just need to get my clay ready to work with later. I know that Roald Dahl did this. He always left his writing in a place he was excited to return to it. He would stop his writing at a high point in a story where he was anxious to complete or explore where the story was going.

So here is step one for me in building my on-going creative work –

***end my daily writing with a note to next steps – what will I write tomorrow

NOTE to myself: Monday I will write about whether I can create a contract with myself to start a 100 day challenge to do one creative act each day. For me that creative act would be watercolor or drawing. Spring is coming, I am sure, and this project does not involve words. (see The Creative contract prompt 188. https://theisolationjournals.substack.com/s/sunday-prompts/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=menu)

So what do you do when stuck? Has this month been easy for you to write daily or a struggle? Either is ok it is where we are in our own journey. It is all about learning and relearning. The point is to keep trying. See you on Monday!