This is Tim Wendell,
And I think we can all agree that writing isn't easy.
Sometimes it all unravels,
And perhaps you even begin to suffer from writer's block.
Tom Wolfe,
Who wrote The Right Stuff,
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,
Bonfire the Vanities,
Once said that writer's block is simply fear.
Fear about what someone might think of your work.
Someone like a friend,
A teacher,
Even a larger audience.
We begin fighting ourselves,
Worried about bringing our particular insights and stories to the world.
Well,
Here's something that I think can help.
Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath,
Breathing down deep into the belly.
By using your breath,
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
You've already helped calm your mind.
Now think about a project you're currently working on.
Linger on particular details about it.
How the opening may be rolling along well enough,
But then it perhaps stalls after that.
Or maybe you're unsure about the ending,
Or its very theme,
What it's trying to say.
Bring into focus as many of those details as you can.
Let's stop again and take another deep breath.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Now let's imagine that the story or article is finished.
See those pages double spaced on your screen.
Perhaps you can even picture them in a magazine or in book form.
Or maybe how everything comes up when someone links to it.
Now,
In your mind's eye,
Place those images just above the descriptions of where you're currently at with the project.
In essence,
The finished project hovers above the current state.
Now notice the distance between the work in progress and the finished work.
It may seem like a very wide gap,
But the more you picture it,
You realize it really isn't.
Consider this gap one last time,
Allowing the momentum between the current state and the final vision to build.
This will give you the needed energy and momentum to finish the job.
Take one last breath,
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
And let's decide to bring a portion of this energy and newfound purpose into the rest of our day.
