Have you ever found yourself just lost in the abyss of nothingness staring at the screen, with your fingers just resting on top of your keys and doing nothing else? Or were you ever in that confusing situation when you are seated in front a table with a piece of paper and a pen with its cap removed on your hand? Have you ever thought. What now?
Well if you have, let me tell you now my friend, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I'm with you. I mean that literally, I currently am in the limbo of writing where everything could go either way. To write or not to write that is the question. Nay, I know I want to write, the better question is what to write?
I woke up this morning all gung-ho about writing. And right up to the moment when I have to put down my very first sentence, it hit me : what should I write about now? Brilliant! I have nothing! Na da! Zilch! Wala! So again, I got up and did what anybody in my situation would do: I did other things.
I had to have my breakfast first so there. Tapped the McDo app and waited for the food to be delivered. After filling up with carbs I was too full to do anything else aside to lie on the couch, switched the TV on and off to Netflix we go. Rewatched a bunch of episoded from How I Met Your Mother and then some korean show called Busted. The show's pretty interesting. They're a group of celebrities acting as themselves and they belong to a detective group that is commissioned to solve some crimes. Personalities like Sehun, Seung-gi and Park Min-Yong are on the show. I believe if you are into kdramas or kpop, you might have heard about them. :)
After few hours of procrastinating, thinking I finally got in the mood, I took my phone out and started to type some ideas down. Nope, not that, not this, scrap, trash, reject. I managed to shot down any idea I tossed into the table. Funny thing, a while ago I have nothing, but then I had so many, too many! I can't decide which one to pursue. And once again I took the path travelled by most. I got back up and went outside for a walk under the scorching ball of gas, our sun.
I managed to sweep the garage, take our dog to a bath, I was able to clean the room, the kitchen and the living room. A good sweat really keeps other juices flowing. After refreshing myself I grabbed my phone again (I'm really practising to write on phone to lessen my reasons not to write, because sometimes a great idea hits me but I'm nowhere the computer so I put the idea down until I could get ahold of a keyboard to write in until poof, it's gone, if I'm accustomed to writing on mobile, then I could whip out something right at the moment of the conception of an idea), this time for sure. And then, I opened a game.
Thankfully, or not, the game was still laggy due to internet bursts of down and ups. So I tried writing again. I stumbled on an article I have written 2 weeks ago : Creative Writing, Keep Writing . Suddenly I'm pretty motivated again.
So here I am dishing this one out, and hopefully the others soon too, to remind you and my future self on what to write when you have nothing to write. Just write something, anything and everything.
Notes :
You never have NOTHING to write
There's practically a million things to write about under the sun any given time. And that's just under the sun, there's a billion more above it. Just pick one. If later you think you do not like it, pick another, the choices are never ending.
Read some things first.
I found reading the works of others helpful when I'm feeling lost on what to write. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shall copy the work of others, that's a HUGE NO! I'm just saying you may get inspired while reading other works. So read on.
Set the Mood
This may spell the difference with everything. The mood can make or break a crucial and magical moment. It may help to find that mood, that right setting where you can be at peace and relax enough to not be pressured but motivated enough to work your little grey cells. Lights, the smell, the air, the music, all those little details could contribute to your state of mind and creativity. For this specific instant, listening to 90s Anime Soundtracks got my groove going. Yep, Magic Raye Earth and Ranma 1/2 did it for me. And then some high energy music from BTS pumped my blood rushing. And to top it all off, I watched scenes from Notting Hill that ignited the hopeless romantic in me. I'm just a boy, sitting in front of a screen, asking it to write for me. Lol
Write on.
I can't stress this enough. Just write it all out. Don't worry if it does not come out as the masterpiece you envisioned it to be, always remember a great piece does not have to come from one go. You write to practice not to win a one time big time kind of event, but you write to hone your skills and be ready to write that masterpiece in the future. Don't think that Shakespeare, or Rowling wrote those works of art in just one attempt. As I always say, keep writing.
Nice 🙂👍