How to Start Writing When You Have No Ideas

The first in a series of letters reflecting on the wonderings I hear from my beloved “lost writers”.

Photo: Cherry Laithang

The Wondering

“I should be writing. I’ve known this ever since I was little. The call to write has always been there, and has been growing louder and more insistent. But I don’t know what to write. I don’t seem to have any ideas. I feel guilty, like I have let someone down. Someone dear to me. Someone who trusted me. I feel ashamed. Can I even recall the last time I wrote something coherent? Who am I to call myself a writer? I feel like a sham.”

Dear One,

You are not alone. I see you, I feel you. I have been, and on many days, still am you.

And like me, there are many many others in the world who understand your despair, like they know how it is to live in their own skin. Because they too have been you. And on many days, they still are you.

So, if it’s any comfort to know, you won’t need to go into the dark alone.

Even if you are terrified of the void, what if you showed up anyway? At the blank page. At the blinking cursor. At the threshold of this land of no ideas?And asked it if you might walk a part of the way with it.

Don’t expect too much of yourself on this first walk.

Carry a talisman. Come wearing your favourite sweater, the one that your grandmother made for you, sit with your favourite mug of cocoa, or light your happy candle. Carry a small piece of familiarity and comfort with you when you start on this necessary yet unfamiliar walk.

Bring curiosity. Feel the paper with your palms. And, perhaps, write a word.

One word. Any word.

Notice if the ink bleeds and spreads, or if the thick paper manages to consummately hold the ink.

Write another word.

Pause.

You’ve fashioned yourself two tiny steps already in an unknown terrain, and you have not fallen.

Notice.

You are still in your seat, wearing your favourite sweater. Touch it, take in its familiar smell. Or inhale deeply from your favourite brew. See how the comforting light off your favourite candle lights up this space.

Notice that you are writing already. Who knows where these two words can take you?

Write another word. See how that feels.

Good. But there are no ideas still. Only crickets.

Write “crickets” on the page. That’s the fourth word. (Yes, I am counting.)

Now let us change things a bit. Make a list.

It can be any list. If you can’t think of anything, write a grocery list of things that you will need to get tomorrow. And in that list, add one item, one thing that money can’t buy, something that you need urgently.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if supermarkets sold things like listening, or kindness, or self-care?

Assume that they do. Add it to the list. Describe it as if it’s something you can pick off the shelf and drop into your cart.

Now use all five senses to describe it.

What does love look like?

What’s the sound of being listened to?

The touch of self-care boundaries, loving, yet firm?

The smell of having enough?

Or, the taste of calm on your tongue?

Five sentences on the page already. Plus the four words.

Don’t say, “It’s nothing.” You’ve started building something. And you are building it with words.

Words, which equal writing. Words, which equal ideas. Words, the absence of which had made you hopelessly heartsick.

You are doing it. Notice yourself sitting in front of the scary page, writing these words.

Words, words, words. Would they ever be able to hold all that you feel?

And yet, the comfort of words. The joy of writing a word on a page.

You have not betrayed her yet. Today, you have written your words.

And trust that you will, again, tomorrow. You will be true.

Honour the process. And honour your heart. How it sits with its fear, and writes anyway.

It may not have become a story yet. It may not have been cohesive. It may not make sense to anyone but you.

And even you could think, what on earth is the connection? Why did I even write this?

Yet, trust that. Trust the process. Trust your heart. Its ways are intuitive and intelligent, and one day will make you wonder, did I write this?

Stay with the process, and yes, one day, you will wonder, was it me who wrote something so beautiful?

Show up everyday.

If you can’t write, don’t. But stay.

Stay with the page, stay with the awareness of being in your seat.

Stay with the faith that something will form out of nothing.

The blank page is not starched white and sterile. Trust its invisible fecundity.

Dear one, reframe the despair and the blankness.

Shall we call it spaciousness?

Stay with the reason why, and with the love.

Remember, there is no longing put into our hearts without the capacity to respond to that longing.

How much do you love this love of your life?

Stay, and I promise you, you will find the words.

Stay, and I promise that you will be found.