Several years ago I bribed myself to get my writing done. On that day in 2017 I earned a cup of coffee by writing about what I didn’t want to write about.
Perhaps this is the little-known secret for ending writer’s block: withhold coffee (or chocolate, or sex, or whatever a person likes best) until the first 500 words or 5 minutes are spent writing.
What do you think?
I quickly jotted moments in time from that painful era, but I felt extra fussy about what was coming up.
They were tangentially about what I didn’t want to write about – they would be, if I allowed them, to be a path back to writing. It was as if I wasn’t really listening.
I thought I could write…
- About walking down 19th St with Josh last night about the early days before and after Samuel’s diagnosis.
- About seeing an educrat last night who long ago insisted it was bad mothering causing Samuel’s behaviors (which were so obviously spectrum anyone with any ounce of knowledge should have known.)
Or I could choose to investigate, try, explore
- Putting myself back in my 2007 shoes – finding the gap of July 31 to October 23 without a blog post. Unheard of in that era. Most eras of my life actually.
I dove into the last option.
I discovered my final blog words on July 31, 2007 were “In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I can not walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”
I must have had the notion that the darkness was behind me: my brother had died and I was doing ok with that – only light on the horizon, right?
What I didn’t know was August, September and October did nothing but get worst.
Blog Silence for all of August. All of September. All of those early Fall months were filled with darkness.
It’s about time I trust myself enough to I bow to the darkness, putting my face closer to the metaphorical flower that is poisonous and only opens in the dark.
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives.
Watch for the announcement of Stop the Stuck: Cultivating the Abundance of Your Inner Muse Group Coaching Program coming soon –
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
