What to Do When You Can't Write Anything

How to Convince Your Brain to Let Yourself Rest as a Writer

I’m recovering from gender affirming surgery. YAY, right? Yeah, well, my brain doesn’t like to let me rest. Recovery is for chumps! it yells.

But I literally, physically can’t sit at my desk for long periods of time. So how am I supposed to be a writer if I’m not writing?

By hacking my brain, of course.

Writing Isn’t the Writer’s Only Task

Writing a book is a cycle. You’re not writing the whole time. There’s researching, reading, outlining, bouncing ideas off people, editing, finding beta readers — I mean, it’s never ending.

Luckily, these things don’t need to be done at the same time. If you can’t write, find one of the other tasks you can do.

Especially if you can do it while horizontal on the couch.

Feed Your Leaf Mould

“… grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long been forgotten, descending into the deeps.”

You know who said that? J.R.R. Tolkien. He’s talking about writing, about how all the things that we feed our mind come to the surface when we’re creating.

Some people think you need to feed your leaf mould only the highest quality so that you’ll turn around and create the highest quality.

But me? I completely disagree.

Feed your leaf mould everything.

Taking Inspiration from Media

I deeply believe you should be actively reading in your genre. I also deeply believe you should be reading outside of your genre.

The same is true of watching TV. And movies. And anime. And video games. Even stuff people would consider “junk.” Maybe even especially that.

So long as your brain is actively asking questions about the media you consume, there is no wasted time. Because challenging your own view of the world expands your thought process and helps you break through the walls that you routinely put up.

It trains you to see the man behind the curtain so you can duplicate it in your own work.

When you watch something and hate it, ask yourself why you hated it. Can you put it into words? When you watch something and love it, ask yourself why you love it, because then you can bring that to your own stuff.

Learning media literacy is a way of making sure that your own work is stronger and better serves the reader.

So yeah, enjoy your trashy TV while you’re resting.