The Hardest Part

Today marks my second weekly intensive writing day since all of The Maple Leaves madness started a few months ago.

You could say that I had my share of intensive writing days as I prepped for the show – the process of which I blogged about on our show blog rather than here.

Although I spent a lot of time on the play and it involved some re-writing, it was a much more collaborative and open process, and it became a finished piece, a product if you will. Something still in-progress but shared with an audience at that point in its development, whole and something part of me but also outside of me.

And now comes the hardest part.

A new beginning.

A blank page.

Me alone in my writing hovel.

Waiting.

I’m really only content when I’m living inside a story. Even working on something and realizing the piece isn’t something or isn’t something right now and having to abandon it is easier for me than this waiting period.

I’m better at this now than I used to be. I have ways to cope. An accountability group, exercises and prompts, inspirational readings, other writer friends to commiserate with. I write every day. I remind myself that it’s the practice that’s important. I try to shut the door on doubt, mainly on the fear that I won’t feel a tug and I’ll be stuck in this limbo forever and will never write anything of value ever again. I tell myself this has happened before, that it happens every time a draft is done, and I have to move onto something new (and most days I try to believe myself).

All of those coping mechanisms makes its easier to continue with my daily practice. What they don’t seem to fix is this feeling of being unsettled all of the time.

I can only hope that this waiting will make me appreciate the next story all the more when it does arrive. The one that I’ll be ready to fall completely, utterly, frustratingly in love with.