If you’re writing this week, it’s either because you’re on a tight deadline, you’re stranded on a solitary island in the South Pacific and it just happens to have wifi, or you finished all your shopping and meal prep in October…which sounds a little scary for the perishables.
What does a writer do when it’s either hard or impossible or inappropriate to think of writing?
How do we write when we’re not writing?
Observe.
Whether it’s a holiday week or a non-holiday rough week, we’re still writing when we’re observing. Imagine the richness of your fiction or nonfiction if you’re:
- observing relationship dynamics
- taking note of meaningful moments
- watching for conversation snippets that can become dialogue exchanges in your work in progress
- living life and absorbing what it teaches
Collect.
It’s a little obvious if we walk around with a notebook in hand. But, related to observing, when we’re not actually writing words, we can collect word pictures, mental images, memories.
Reflect.
If you’re a praying person, pray over your writing and what you observe and collect while you’re not writing. It will help cement the ideas in your mind for when you can get back to your keyboard. Meditate on how what’s happening around you can influence what’s waiting inside you to be birthed in your project.
Grow.
Nothing is standing in the way of your growing in maturity and communication skills even if the only person you’ll see this week is the one in the mirror. Whether solitude or a cacophony of people and voices, the atmosphere is ripe for growth.
The atmosphere CAN reek of guilt over not attaining your word count goals. Send all guilt through the garbage disposal.
If you have in-between moments this week, take a look at two of the opportunities Books & Such offers in addition to these blog posts.
You’ll find info about the Books & Such podcast here.
If you’re not already a Books & Such author, but are eager to grow closer to your writing goals and crave one-on-one mentoring from experienced agents, take note of our upcoming virtual Writing Intensive here. Early Bird Special: Through December 31, 2025
And once again, may you find JOY in your world because of the coming of Christ into this world.
Heaven and Nature Sing— Infusing Natural Phenomena in Fiction
I’ve backed into a ministry
that I sure did not expect
that rides the horse called Poetry
whose hoofbeats daily must project
a faith built on the observation
of world within and world without,
that admits no hesitation,
nor timidity, nor doubt,
and it is really hard to do
at this or any time of year
when my body’s sore run through
by cancer’s ever-tearing spear,
so as the tree lights blink and gleam
I pray to live as I am seen.