I’ve been struggling with writing for the last year or so — I don’t think anyone would be surprised that the amount of actual writing I’ve done since early 2016 has been negligible. I went back to graduate school — a more demanding program than my last go around. My health has been rough, my family obligations have increased (despite not having kids of my own somehow). And I’ve just lost the creative juice. I’ve said this before, but it’s become clear to me over the last month that it’s not just the creative mojo I’ve lost, but the actual love of writing.

I don’t know what to do about that. I have the urge to write until I open up the screen. I’ll get through a few scenes (there is actual progress that’s been made with Bittersweet), but I haven’t had that breakthrough moment. When I was writing A Few Words Too Many in early 2014, I wrote that entire story in about a month. It just poured out of me. I stayed up late, I wrote several chapters a day. I wrote every day — it was a struggle to stop writing to do every day things like my actual graduate work and go out with friends. The Best Thing and All We Are came in more fits and starts, but there were days like that for both of those stories, and of course the first two seasons of Damaged–once I figured out what I was doing with that story, it just flowed in about six months.

I’ve lost that somewhere. And it breaks my heart. I don’t know where it went. I still think about unfinished works every day, I plan it in my head. I write entire scenes while I’m supposed to be driving or working. And then I sit down to actually create what I’ve been seeing, and it just falls apart on the page. Maybe I’m being too hard on my self, maybe I literally just have to force myself to write. I don’t know. I’m not giving up.

I sat down this morning to work on Damaged, Season 3, and I’m ripping it apart for the fourth time.  I’ve been having trouble with it because there are some stories in there I’m not excited about and that hasn’t helped. I’m going to spend most of today on it — apart from getting ready a short shift at work. I’m going to keep writing. I can’t promise what or when I’ll be posting new content again.

But I’ll keep trying. I have this memory of the day I wrote If I Don’t Try With You in about three hours–it has to be honestly the best three hour period of my writing career. And that just poured out of me. I think it shows in how good it is (I’m not being modest–I actually cried while writing it, I love that story so much.) I know I’m capable of this kind of writing. I just have to find it again.

I love you guys for sticking around — as always, I am here. I’ll keep trying if you’ll keep waiting.

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