Not Writing

By Michael Harling

It's widely accepted that writing begets writing, but last week I read the logical extrapolation of this saying: "Not writing begets not writing." To your average person, this is probably as surprising as ants at a picnic, but it was a genuine revelation to me, akin to an alcoholic realizing that the way to get sober is to stop drinking.

Every year around mid-December, no matter how much writing momentum I have built up, my writing output plummets to approximately zero and stays that way until I realize February is approaching and I haven't received any New Year's rejection letters yet.

This year was particularly bad; struggling to get my current novel off the ground was like trying to fly a kite on a calm day. I was running in circles with nothing to show for it but mounting exhaustion and some battered paper at the end of a string, and any time I felt as if I was making progress, I'd step in a pile of dog-doo.

Then came the day when I decided I was too tired, cold, depressed, uninspired, [enter excuse here] to write anything so I stared at the blank screen for a few minutes, then closed the laptop without having written a word. The next day, closing the laptop came easier, and the day after that I didn't even bother to open it. My not-writing momentum built up and soon I was spending my writing time gazing out the window wondering if I should continue to call myself a writer.

The solution to this annual event has always eluded me, until now. My problem isn't the weather or the season or my mood, it's that one time I decided to not write. All I need to do is devise a method to keep myself from not not writing:

Method one: Pay someone to force me to write. This is the Godfather method of maintaining output. Every evening, my hired goon would visit me and demand to see at least a page of output from that day. If I failed to produce it, he would, well, do what, exactly? If he broke my fingers that would sort of defeat the purpose. Likewise trashing my computer. I suppose he could burn the previous day's output, but that would require him to force me to print it out first. He would also have to force me to delete the file from my hard drive and there is no way he could know about my off-site back-up unless he tortured me into telling him by breaking my fingers, which would sort of . . .

Let me think on this one a bit more and get back to you.

Method two: Lower my standards. I admit this hold a certain amount of appeal as I can be overly stringent with myself. Currently, writing in my journal does not count as productive writing, only work which I intend to attempt to publish is counted. Unfortunately, during this period, I seldom write in my journal either, but I suppose I must send the occasional e-mail, post a comment on someone's blog or sign my name on a check; if I allowed myself to count that as productive writing, I'd be back on track.

This, however, smacks of desperation and strikes me as being about as effective in lifting my "I'm not really a writer" funk as spending more quality time with the window.

Method three: Just get on with it. This, obviously, is a last resort, and may have to be combined with elements of the previous method. Maybe I don't need to write a whole page in order for my output to count. If I allowed myself a single sentence and then gave myself permission to call it a day, that would at least constitute actual progress. And after the first sentence, if I felt like writing a second, there's nothing to stop me.

While unquestionably the best, cheapest and least painful method, it also sounds like hard work. Maybe I could hire the guy to come over and just tease me.


Aside from the occasional month or two of winter-induced down-time, Michael Harling has been writing for 25 years. He is currently working on his next novel, one sentence at a time, and waiting for a fresh, spring breeze. Visit him at www.Lindenwald.com.