I do three things when I have nothing to say: read, write, and not-write. In all of these activities, I successfully engage with language (and the lack of it) every day. Although I'm not "saying" something every time I do these things, they create an environment in which something to say might be found.
Reading is the easiest thing to mention here: I read not in a mercenary way but as a way to keep abreast of my own burgeoning curiosities. It's a wonderful time of discovery. And I read widely and indiscriminately all the time through newsletters like this one, news roundups, feature articles, the local paper, emails, texts, and the little, ongoing syllabus of Books in My Library I Have Not Read and Am Somehow Avoiding. More recently, the reading has been driven more by what I'm doing professionally, be it teaching or lectures for events. The point is to be exposed to many registers of language at once on a pretty daily basis.
Writing can be thought of in the same way. I'm writing when I email or text another person. You may want to be intentional with how you do "useless" writing too. This is the diary and/or the dream log. I set a routine for myself: write down your dream as soon as you wake up. You may be someone who doesn't remember dreams. That's ok. If you don't remember anything, you can still use this time to blearily journal in a low-stakes, low-grade way. The "notebook" is another key factor in this. The "notebook" doesn't have to be a book, but it should be an easily accessible place where you go to write down your thoughts. Notebook schemes can change. For example, right now my "notebook" is a writing pad I keep on my office desk, my usual steno half-sheet pad, and the notes app in which I'm typing this right now. Not as organized as I usually like to be, but no matter. Someday, when the time is right, I'll come back to these and use the pieces.
When you have "nothing to say," it's creative downtime. In these times, like myself at this very instant, I feel scatterbrained, imposter-y, and ineffectual until I come upon a spark through my other activities. When this happens, I write it down on some limb of the note "book." Then it disappears into the ether rather than turning into a manuscript. Alas. But I write it down. I write. And have faith that I will see it when I need it again.
Not-writing is accepting, without judgment, that this is not a time I wish to speak. A friend of mine calls it a winter period—others call it the fallow season, etc. I myself call it an incubation time. I cozy up and get comfortable and look to what brings me gratitude and joy. I teach or spend time developing other interests. I build my relationship with silence. One of the joys of taking your time is withholding your life for yourself.
I just read a quote from Ray Bradbury referring to reading widely as creating “mulch” in your brain, from which ideas can spring someday. I appreciate your closing line especially, it’s hard for me to accept that sometimes I really should be more withdrawn or, to put it more positively, more engaged in my family and Friends and local community. I have a great impulse to create and share at a faster pace, I’m spending time right now questioning that and reserving time for myself.
Quick example: I spent a lot of time in August planning and writing with the idea to start a newsletter in September. It was partly to give myself a deadline and accountability to share writing, and I wanted to have a project to toggle to as I worked on my long fiction project. After I sent the first newsletter, a close friend asked me why, why was I doing this? The accountability I could get from just sharing my drafts with her. Why did I need this public/outward project when I was heading into an intensive fiction class? I didn’t have answers that satisfied me, when I really looked at it. I felt like I “should” have a newsletter (what with the emphasis on building a platform) but it was taking focus from my biggest goal right now (finish my fiction manuscript.). This got long and rambling! I just wanted to say that It is engrained in me that I should have something to say and I should say it publicly. But I’m pushing back against that now and learning how lovely it can be to keep all my writing for a small group of people, or just myself, for the time being.
Hi again Devin, and thank you for sharing your recent story! I have a very similar impulse to be "productive" in that way. Writing is a kind of work that is self-appointed and the boundaries between work and life are less clear than working for a corporation from which you clock in and out.
I also had a lot of professionalization impulses in me and similar outlooks on "building a platform." However, building a platform on nothing means it will most likely fail, perhaps confirming fears you already have about the worth of your work.
When fame actually showed up for me, it was sudden and after a long period of silence. I asked myself what exactly I wanted to be famous for. And that you can only answer through spending time with yourself and your values.
Weirdly the most useful thing I found when I was last in this situation was to start every piece of writing with where I currently was and what I was reading (ie. I am in Caffe Nero and I'm reading Sylvia Plath...)
Something about describing what I was reading helped reactivate that dormant writing gene in me: it was always a way in to writing something better.
Hi again Tom! I like that your prompt has a *little* program in it, but not too much. The randomness/difference in what you might want to say is just as important, it seems.
I find that whatever happens, I'm inspired to respond to reading, whether it's wanting to do it better or just to aspire to something equivalent in whatever way is my way. Like responding to what someone has said in a conversation, and to keep it going!
Absolutely. That was part of it - a desire to remember what I read, not just let it flow over me - but whenever I tried following a formula to capturing those thoughts it felt like a chore.
Much more interesting to see what resonates on the surface of memory on a given day.
Thank you Yanyi for writing on this. You have a very uncanny way of addressing what's on my mind writing wise in the moment in each post, as if we are in sync somehow. I am happy to be reminded of these three things, but I find myself getting stuck after I've done all the things you suggest and want to ask for your thoughts and strategies on that. I have so many notes and journals, I've taken many writing classes, I even left a job to start exploring my writing more (while freelancing), and still I struggle to form the raw material I have into something - whether poem, short story, essay, or other work. I have ideas for forms, and I have forms suggested in writing classes. Yet when it comes down to it, it's like all thoughts and ideas and ability to make sense of things disappear. I go blank. I'm not even sure if this is fear. It may be anxiety, c-ptsd, add, lack of discipline, or lack of ability to do it. I get so frustrated and sad (and embarrassed) because this is something I want to do more than anything else. And I don't know how to explain to people the sudden inability to turn ideas into material reality. I thought I'd give it some time, but I've watched a year go by... a friend recently recommended "outwriting the pace of my brain" but even then, I still find it very journal-y and draft-y, not formulated into anything... have you experienced this before? Does it signal anything to you? Are there strategies?
Hi Abby, thank you for the question. The first thing that came to mind about your situation is that your whole mind goes blank the moment you sit down. This sounds like a stress response to me—at least, this happens to me right before I do a huge event or speak in front of large groups of people in the form of performance anxiety. I know someone who experiences this—along with panic attacks—with tests and being judged by others. Of course, only a therapist can truly help you on pinpointing this.
I want to stress that there's nothing wrong with you. Every writer, at a certain point, has to stop accepting inputs about other people's "normal" processes and create their own normal. A lot of writers gas up turning off the internet, going to cafes, opening up blank word docs, etc. There are the Carrie Bradshaws and then there's you and me.
Think back to the moments when it was easiest for you to write. What was around you? What were you doing? For me, this turned out to be my subway commute. Low stakes, no internet distractions, and only time between me and my phone. For a while, you may have to trick yourself into writing to circumvent your body's responses.
After you generate, you have to edit. If translation is a very slow reading (https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/interview-with-susan-bernofsky) then editing is on the way to that. Editing requires another environment. The computer puts a lot of stress on changeability, so I print things out in a font that I would see in a book and pretend they're published. I read, write edits and sometimes whole new passages by hand, then I type edits up. Typing = again, low stakes. You have to become a better reader to edit well. So make your work something you have to read.
Last bonus tip: make your editing physical. I printed out all 339 poems that were candidates for my first book and arranged their order by hand. You can do a similar thing by cutting out paragraphs or snippets. There are some pieces of software that you can also use for that (see last week's post on recommended technologies - https://yanyi.substack.com/p/the-writing-what-tools-or-apps-have/comments).
I really enjoy doing different writing exercises or games to just generate words. Like making erasures, anagram games or speed writing, for example. I also do a game where I take a bunch of books or any printed thing (labels, etc) and just make lists of the first words I see. Sometimes it leads to a stream of thought or through line sometimes not, either way I find it fun! Thank you for sharing on this topic, I find it (and all your other posts) so helpful.
Hi Amanda! Thank you for reading and your experiences here. Do you have a favorite recent activity? I took a class once with Farnoosh Fathi, ages ago, on poetry and play that included similar elements like this. Not only fun and generated writing but made the whole idea of "creating work" less daunting and serious. One of our writing prompts, memorably, was written after we listened to a rendition of the "butt music" from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG-34_6_rrk
I will definitely check this out! I totally agree that it makes it less daunting. Lately, I’ve been just picking a song (a long one without or without distinguishable lyrics) and doing a speed write, when I get stuck I write down the first word I see or just write the same word over and over again. I do this till the songs up. I’ll do it a few times over a couple days then go through and underline anything I like and see if I can make something or lead to something else. I find it really nice in terms of challenging my preconceived notions of what a poem can be or how words are supposed to be arranged, etc.
I do three things when I have nothing to say: read, write, and not-write. In all of these activities, I successfully engage with language (and the lack of it) every day. Although I'm not "saying" something every time I do these things, they create an environment in which something to say might be found.
Reading is the easiest thing to mention here: I read not in a mercenary way but as a way to keep abreast of my own burgeoning curiosities. It's a wonderful time of discovery. And I read widely and indiscriminately all the time through newsletters like this one, news roundups, feature articles, the local paper, emails, texts, and the little, ongoing syllabus of Books in My Library I Have Not Read and Am Somehow Avoiding. More recently, the reading has been driven more by what I'm doing professionally, be it teaching or lectures for events. The point is to be exposed to many registers of language at once on a pretty daily basis.
Writing can be thought of in the same way. I'm writing when I email or text another person. You may want to be intentional with how you do "useless" writing too. This is the diary and/or the dream log. I set a routine for myself: write down your dream as soon as you wake up. You may be someone who doesn't remember dreams. That's ok. If you don't remember anything, you can still use this time to blearily journal in a low-stakes, low-grade way. The "notebook" is another key factor in this. The "notebook" doesn't have to be a book, but it should be an easily accessible place where you go to write down your thoughts. Notebook schemes can change. For example, right now my "notebook" is a writing pad I keep on my office desk, my usual steno half-sheet pad, and the notes app in which I'm typing this right now. Not as organized as I usually like to be, but no matter. Someday, when the time is right, I'll come back to these and use the pieces.
When you have "nothing to say," it's creative downtime. In these times, like myself at this very instant, I feel scatterbrained, imposter-y, and ineffectual until I come upon a spark through my other activities. When this happens, I write it down on some limb of the note "book." Then it disappears into the ether rather than turning into a manuscript. Alas. But I write it down. I write. And have faith that I will see it when I need it again.
Not-writing is accepting, without judgment, that this is not a time I wish to speak. A friend of mine calls it a winter period—others call it the fallow season, etc. I myself call it an incubation time. I cozy up and get comfortable and look to what brings me gratitude and joy. I teach or spend time developing other interests. I build my relationship with silence. One of the joys of taking your time is withholding your life for yourself.
I just read a quote from Ray Bradbury referring to reading widely as creating “mulch” in your brain, from which ideas can spring someday. I appreciate your closing line especially, it’s hard for me to accept that sometimes I really should be more withdrawn or, to put it more positively, more engaged in my family and Friends and local community. I have a great impulse to create and share at a faster pace, I’m spending time right now questioning that and reserving time for myself.
Quick example: I spent a lot of time in August planning and writing with the idea to start a newsletter in September. It was partly to give myself a deadline and accountability to share writing, and I wanted to have a project to toggle to as I worked on my long fiction project. After I sent the first newsletter, a close friend asked me why, why was I doing this? The accountability I could get from just sharing my drafts with her. Why did I need this public/outward project when I was heading into an intensive fiction class? I didn’t have answers that satisfied me, when I really looked at it. I felt like I “should” have a newsletter (what with the emphasis on building a platform) but it was taking focus from my biggest goal right now (finish my fiction manuscript.). This got long and rambling! I just wanted to say that It is engrained in me that I should have something to say and I should say it publicly. But I’m pushing back against that now and learning how lovely it can be to keep all my writing for a small group of people, or just myself, for the time being.
As always, thanks for your newsletter:)
Hi again Devin, and thank you for sharing your recent story! I have a very similar impulse to be "productive" in that way. Writing is a kind of work that is self-appointed and the boundaries between work and life are less clear than working for a corporation from which you clock in and out.
I also had a lot of professionalization impulses in me and similar outlooks on "building a platform." However, building a platform on nothing means it will most likely fail, perhaps confirming fears you already have about the worth of your work.
When fame actually showed up for me, it was sudden and after a long period of silence. I asked myself what exactly I wanted to be famous for. And that you can only answer through spending time with yourself and your values.
Weirdly the most useful thing I found when I was last in this situation was to start every piece of writing with where I currently was and what I was reading (ie. I am in Caffe Nero and I'm reading Sylvia Plath...)
Something about describing what I was reading helped reactivate that dormant writing gene in me: it was always a way in to writing something better.
Hi again Tom! I like that your prompt has a *little* program in it, but not too much. The randomness/difference in what you might want to say is just as important, it seems.
I find that whatever happens, I'm inspired to respond to reading, whether it's wanting to do it better or just to aspire to something equivalent in whatever way is my way. Like responding to what someone has said in a conversation, and to keep it going!
Absolutely. That was part of it - a desire to remember what I read, not just let it flow over me - but whenever I tried following a formula to capturing those thoughts it felt like a chore.
Much more interesting to see what resonates on the surface of memory on a given day.
PS. Sorry this is so close to your deadline!
Haha no worries.
Thank you Yanyi for writing on this. You have a very uncanny way of addressing what's on my mind writing wise in the moment in each post, as if we are in sync somehow. I am happy to be reminded of these three things, but I find myself getting stuck after I've done all the things you suggest and want to ask for your thoughts and strategies on that. I have so many notes and journals, I've taken many writing classes, I even left a job to start exploring my writing more (while freelancing), and still I struggle to form the raw material I have into something - whether poem, short story, essay, or other work. I have ideas for forms, and I have forms suggested in writing classes. Yet when it comes down to it, it's like all thoughts and ideas and ability to make sense of things disappear. I go blank. I'm not even sure if this is fear. It may be anxiety, c-ptsd, add, lack of discipline, or lack of ability to do it. I get so frustrated and sad (and embarrassed) because this is something I want to do more than anything else. And I don't know how to explain to people the sudden inability to turn ideas into material reality. I thought I'd give it some time, but I've watched a year go by... a friend recently recommended "outwriting the pace of my brain" but even then, I still find it very journal-y and draft-y, not formulated into anything... have you experienced this before? Does it signal anything to you? Are there strategies?
Hi Abby, thank you for the question. The first thing that came to mind about your situation is that your whole mind goes blank the moment you sit down. This sounds like a stress response to me—at least, this happens to me right before I do a huge event or speak in front of large groups of people in the form of performance anxiety. I know someone who experiences this—along with panic attacks—with tests and being judged by others. Of course, only a therapist can truly help you on pinpointing this.
I want to stress that there's nothing wrong with you. Every writer, at a certain point, has to stop accepting inputs about other people's "normal" processes and create their own normal. A lot of writers gas up turning off the internet, going to cafes, opening up blank word docs, etc. There are the Carrie Bradshaws and then there's you and me.
Think back to the moments when it was easiest for you to write. What was around you? What were you doing? For me, this turned out to be my subway commute. Low stakes, no internet distractions, and only time between me and my phone. For a while, you may have to trick yourself into writing to circumvent your body's responses.
After you generate, you have to edit. If translation is a very slow reading (https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/interview-with-susan-bernofsky) then editing is on the way to that. Editing requires another environment. The computer puts a lot of stress on changeability, so I print things out in a font that I would see in a book and pretend they're published. I read, write edits and sometimes whole new passages by hand, then I type edits up. Typing = again, low stakes. You have to become a better reader to edit well. So make your work something you have to read.
Last bonus tip: make your editing physical. I printed out all 339 poems that were candidates for my first book and arranged their order by hand. You can do a similar thing by cutting out paragraphs or snippets. There are some pieces of software that you can also use for that (see last week's post on recommended technologies - https://yanyi.substack.com/p/the-writing-what-tools-or-apps-have/comments).
Good luck!
Thank you so much for your generous answer!
I really enjoy doing different writing exercises or games to just generate words. Like making erasures, anagram games or speed writing, for example. I also do a game where I take a bunch of books or any printed thing (labels, etc) and just make lists of the first words I see. Sometimes it leads to a stream of thought or through line sometimes not, either way I find it fun! Thank you for sharing on this topic, I find it (and all your other posts) so helpful.
Hi Amanda! Thank you for reading and your experiences here. Do you have a favorite recent activity? I took a class once with Farnoosh Fathi, ages ago, on poetry and play that included similar elements like this. Not only fun and generated writing but made the whole idea of "creating work" less daunting and serious. One of our writing prompts, memorably, was written after we listened to a rendition of the "butt music" from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG-34_6_rrk
I will definitely check this out! I totally agree that it makes it less daunting. Lately, I’ve been just picking a song (a long one without or without distinguishable lyrics) and doing a speed write, when I get stuck I write down the first word I see or just write the same word over and over again. I do this till the songs up. I’ll do it a few times over a couple days then go through and underline anything I like and see if I can make something or lead to something else. I find it really nice in terms of challenging my preconceived notions of what a poem can be or how words are supposed to be arranged, etc.