By Laura Rink

Your present writing mission has stalled. A mission you received’t abandon. A mission that should progress, and shortly. You stare on the web page. You scroll by way of the manuscript. You flip by way of your notes. No options seem. You swirl in despair. Now what?

1. Proceed swirling in despair. That is an possibility—typically you want to wallow. Groan loudly. Drop your head in your fingers. Lay on the ground. Go to this despair however don’t reside there. Set a timer—boundaries are essential with unwelcome guests.

2. Transfer your physique. Despair embeds itself in immobility. Despair settles in stillness. Motion can dissipate despair, or no less than dilute it. In case you’re already on the ground, do some stretches. Placed on a favourite tune and dance. Or get off the ground. Go for a stroll exterior—all the time a mood-shifter.

3. Proceed swirling in despair AND preserve working. Despair itself doesn’t must cease your fingers from transferring over the keyboard or greedy a pen.

4. Writing is its personal sort of motion. Spend time with a sentence. Learn a chapter or an essay from the top to the start, one paragraph at a time. Work on any part that’s calling, nonetheless faintly, to you.

5. Get tactile. Print out an essay or a chapter and minimize aside the paragraphs. Transfer them round.

6. Telephone a author pal—you received’t must say a lot, they get it!

7. Write in regards to the despair. The place does it originate in your physique? Does it have a colour? A taste? A scent? Is that this a brand new sort of despair or a well-known one which follows you often? What sorts of conditions invite this despair in? What has dissipated this despair earlier than? File the writing underneath “all the pieces is materials.”

8. Write about your intentions on your present writing mission. Write about what you would like was occurring with the work.

9. Remind your self that you’re a author.

10. Write.
______

Laura Rink is writing a memoir about her Armenian grandmother and the Genocide of 1915-1923. She earned her MFA in Artistic Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop in 2021. Her essays are on-line on the Brevity Weblog, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Keepthings, and Brief Reads. She blogs at LauraRink.com and It’s a Good Day on Substack.