Dear Writer,
The anxiety of sitting down to write is overwhelming. I know. It seems silly that such a little thing should rattle the nerves so much. Maybe it’s because you’re attributing a lot of importance to the task; maybe it’s because you care. It could also be what someone else referred to as the “impossible task” of making something from nothing. It seems like there are simultaneously so many things to say – and nothing at all worth saying. What a twisted state of affairs.
You’re staring into the void. But you’re not alone in feeling the anxiety. Writers, as a whole, are a pretty neurotic bunch. All the inward-turning. All the perfectionism and attention to detail.
Of course, there’s too much chaos in your head, most of the time, to write clearly. Usually, your thoughts are scrambled in a mess of half-nods to an idea. And then there’s the fact that you’re not writing on assignment – you’re not being held accountable and told what to say. There’s no external authority validating your work and telling you that it’s important (by virtue of paying you, or giving you a grade, or handing you a deadline). Who’s going to read it, anyhow?
The thing is, you’re faced with the problem of having to create your own importance – of having to rely on yourself to declare that this work (which you are committing to, which you are making time for, which you are sitting down to do) is somehow important and useful and meaningful. That’s a hard thing to accomplish in a vacuum.
That’s why it might be good to create goals and deadlines of a sort. To find an audience, to find a community. To find a way to connect your writing to people – so that this activity doesn’t feel so isolating, or selfish, or like time vainly spent. It seems utterly important, somehow, to establish that this work means something. Or else, what’s the point?
At some level, I know you can see the fruits of your writing – some of them hard to pin down, more along the lines of how the writing is changing you as a person. And you understand that, if God’s asking you to write, then it’s a good and valuable and worthy use of time. It serves a purpose.
But still, the anxiety. It’s hard to avoid.
Writing by hand, in a notebook, helps. It makes the process more “real,” less abstract. It makes you feel as if you’re doing some kind of tangible work – and you don’t feel like you’re in so much danger of drifting off into strange realities. You’re here, at a desk, putting visible words onto a physical page. You can wrap your head around that.
The world is wide open to you – but sometimes it helps to shut the door so you can stop for a minute and hear yourself think.
Courage, dear writer. Your words have weight. Don’t abandon ship.
Sincerely,
Me