Hey Everyone–
Do you have days when the ideas are NOT flowing, when every word must be pulled from the muck in painful agonizing slow motion hellishness? When nothing seems to be working, and you’re ready to give up? You doubt the very premise of your story or book or screenplay and wonder what possessed you to even start this project in the first place?
On days like this, it feels like ALL the days are like this. But it’s not true. We just give bad writing days way too much importance.
Yesterday was a really crappy writing day. I mean, BAD. So I forced myself to find the good.
Here it is…. My writing gratitude list.
PAT’S WRITING GRATITUDE LIST
I am grateful for fingers that type. For a brain that occasionally gets a good idea.
I am grateful for a single word or phrase that appears, seemingly from thin air, as if by magic.
I am grateful for coffee.
And alcohol.
And croissants.
I am grateful for my dog, who sleeps at my feet when I write. Thanks Lucy, for listening to me scream.
I’m grateful for computers.Yes, I remember the days of typewriters and white out, and correcting tape.
I’m grateful for silence.
And for music.
And for the humming of a printer, which means I’ve actually written something.
I’m grateful for structure, which allows me to make a writing schedule.
And for time off, so I can screw around and dream.
I’m grateful for the jasmine that grows outside my windows and makes me happy.
I’m grateful for all the rejections, which taught me to persevere.
I’m grateful for human beings, who are such great material.
But mostly I’m grateful for the written word itself.That it allows me to confront my fears, to tell the truth, and reveal the deepest parts of myself.
Take action. List all the things you are grateful for in your writing life. Be truthful. Find the good.
Keep writing.
xo Pat