Trekking Across the Creativity Desert

Sometimes I have what I call creativity dry spells, when ideas flow like molasses and everything feels flat.

I still write during these periods, but my words just don’t sing. I stare at them afterward and they look painfully ordinary. Judgments like “ugh, pedantic” or “so uninspired” swirl around my head. And I just have to look away.

I’ve learned the only way to deal with these periods is to work through them. The last thing I can do is listen to myself. I’d never pick up a pen again!



These are the times that test my discipline. Am I a writer or a waiter? Keep the faith, keep the pen moving – that’s my mantra.

During this particular creativity dry spell, I’m facing a long writing to do list. I have to get cracking on a new spec script for all the writing program applications, I have pages of brainstorming on new original pilot ideas that I need to distill into succinct pitch paragraphs for my agent, I have at least nine short stories that need resolutions and endings, and a long short story that is done but needs editing before I start converting it into a short film script, plus a healthy handful of feature ideas that I’m contemplating.

And I’m staring at all of it and just scratching my head, uninterested in diving in.

But I must, because the only way to get rid of a creativity dry spell is to dive right in.

So I’m writing this blog post for now before I get started on something. Because well-begun is half done – I saw that on a poster in my high school English class and have loved it ever since.

Even though none of my ideas are calling to me right now, I still have to push forward and start working.

Because I’m not a person who writes sometimes. I’m a writer. Writers write.

Here I go...