We Begin Again: On Writing, Capacity, and Finding My Way Back to the Page
At the end of Season Three of the Write It Scared Podcast, I left you—and myself—with a question I couldn't answer:
How do you write when you feel numb?
At the time, my dad was struggling with his health, and my world had kind of been rocked. For the first time in a very long time, I couldn't access the part of myself that wanted to create.
I couldn't write fiction. I couldn't even journal. And I honestly didn't know what was next for me as a writer.
I didn't give you a framework for fixing any of it because I didn't have one. I had no pep talks to give. No strategies for how to write through grief or five easy steps to reconnect with your creativity. The best I could come up with was:
Maybe you don't write…until you do.
Then I signed off for the summer, hoping I'd eventually find my way back to the page.
And here we are a few months later.
I did.
So, What Happened?
By the end of July, maybe the first part of August, I had started writing again.
At the time, my dad was—and still is—in the midst of what I can only describe as a chemo marathon. I spent as much time with him as I could over the summer.
For context, my dad is a rancher. He's done this his whole life. He's known what he wanted to do with his life since he was ten. And there is this one day when I was home helping work cows; I keep coming back to it.
Now, my dad is seventy-eight years old. No spring chicken. And this day, I watched this man, with cancer, sporting a colostomy bag, get on horseback and work cows. It almost made me cry.
Obviously, my dad is an incredibly tough human being. But looking back, I think what got me was watching someone continue to do the thing they love despite the difficulty, pain, and uncertainty. Despite everything.
Maybe seeing him on that horse that day did something to me. Maybe it was getting out of my normal routine and spending time at the ranch in the fresh air. Maybe it was sitting on a tractor early in the morning watching the sun come up.
Or maybe enough time had simply passed.
I don't really know.
And I think that's important.
There's Nothing to Reverse Engineer Here
I can't take what happened this summer and turn it into a lesson about how to get yourself writing again. There's no productivity hack here. No shiny new writing routine. I definitely didn't wake up one morning and decide it was time to buckle down, push through, and get serious.
Something in me was simply ready.
So I wrote.
Eventually, I “finished” revising my YA suspense novel.
I say “finished” in air quotes, because you and I both know how that goes. But now it's with beta readers, which means I'm not touching it right now. This version of the book is as done and dusted as I can make it.
And oh my gosh, this book has taken a lot.
Almost 80,000 words. Three years of my life. Countless drafts. More SOS calls to my writing people than I can possibly count because I did not figure this book out alone.
It changed genres. It changed structure. It became dual POV. There were plenty of moments when I genuinely didn't know if I could pull this thing off—and that was before this summer.
But eventually, the book became what it needed to be. Or at least what it needs to be for right now.
I've been reminded again and again that books take what they take.
But this summer taught me something else, too.
Creative lives take what they take.
Sometimes Our Capacity Changes
I'm a big believer in building a sustainable writing practice. I'm a book coach, so, of course, I believe in showing up and doing the work.
But I also think we have to apply the lens of reality.
Sometimes the rhythm that worked for us before no longer works. Sometimes life gets harder or more complicated, and our capacity gets smaller. Sometimes we have to stop for a while before we can start again.
Trying to force ourselves to maintain a writing rhythm that no longer fits our lives isn't discipline. It’s ignoring the reality of our current capacity.
And I don't think we talk about that enough.
Because the goal isn't to prove how badly we want this by grinding ourselves into dust. The goal is to build a creative life we can actually live in.
That means our writing rhythms may have to change when our lives do.
Writing Courage Doesn't Always Look Like Writing
This is part of why I've been thinking so much about courage lately—and why I've introduced The Courage Files to Write It Scared.
We tend to notice the big, shiny writing wins. Finishing the draft. Completing the revision. Landing the agent. Publishing the book. Those things absolutely count, and we should celebrate them. Loudly, and together!
But there are so many quieter acts of writing courage that happen long before we get there.
Going back to the manuscript you've been avoiding for six months counts. Sending pages to a beta reader while every cell in your body screams, Don't let anybody see it, counts. Cutting a scene you love because you finally admitted it doesn't move the story forward counts. Writing two sentences on a day when quitting would have been easier counts.
And sometimes courage might even look like admitting:
I can't write right now.
That counts, too.
Maybe I Can Trust My Creative Life
At the beginning of summer, I didn't know when or how—or even if—I would find my way back to writing.
And it was scary.
But I’m learning to embrace that our creative life has seasons. Some seasons we write a lot. Some seasons we write less. Sometimes we need to stop for a while because life requires something else from us
I’m learning to believe:
Stopping doesn't automatically mean I've lost it forever.
I don't have to panic and immediately figure out how to get it back.
It’s safe to believe that when it's time, I'll begin again.
We Begin Again
That's where I am now.
I'm writing again. One novel is with beta readers while I’m noodling and drafting another. Write It Scared is back for Season Four, although I'm returning with a different rhythm this year—one that better reflects the capacity I actually have rather than the capacity I think I should have.
So, maybe there's something in your writing life you're ready to begin again, too.
Or maybe you're still where I was in June, and writing feels completely inaccessible. If that's you, please don't pile guilt on top of whatever else you're already carrying. Sometimes it's okay to put the pen down.
You don't have to finish on anybody else's timeline.
Books take what they take, and creative lives do, too.
