The Buzz
There was a period in which I wrote with ritualistic certainty. This was back when I first started my Substack, during the Pandemic, and I wrote every day while my daughter napped. That period was vital, although not sustainable, because it taught me that regularly sitting down to write made the whole process simpler, more natural, and with it I was rewarded with high word counts and strong work.
During this era, words poured out of me—spewing stories and essays and anecdotes and vignettes. And so every day was separated into three categories: writing, reading my own writing, or counting down until the next time I could slip away to be alone with my thoughts and produce new writing.
That period was fleeting. Writing, this bright and shiny thing, was like a new penny discovered. Until it wasn’t new and it began to lose its coppery sheen, the gleam wearing off. Also, around this time, I returned to teaching outside of the home.
So I withered down my writing time to a few hours, once, or maybe twice per weekend.
I recently finished Julia Bartz’s debut novel, a thriller, The Writing Retreat. In the work, Bartz contemplates writer’s block, the idea of formal publication, and writing on a deadline—all topics that swirl restlessly, relentlessly inside my skull box. But one particular quote from the novel: “My open laptop continued to feel like a brick wall. The most frustrating part was that I could sense something behind it, something pulsing with aliveness, with potential. But I wasn’t able to break through. It scared me, the thought that maybe writer’s block had come back for good,” has haunted me since the night I read it. Here—the narrator and protagonist sits down to write—but obviously cannot.
Fast forward to today. I am sitting down to confront a simple truth: I’ve had a stint of writer’s block, which, for me, doesn’t look like slamming my head against a table or a wall, willing words to come out as they defiantly refuse. No, my writers block looks like avoidance. It takes hold and my stubborn streak bubbles, and I refuse to attempt any words at all.
During these periods, though, there is still the buzzing. Potential words forming, ready to grow into something larger.
Each word a bee. Each bee contributing to the hive. Always working, invisibly to outsiders, but the queen knows not one body rests until the honey is made. And even then, they are never finished.
This buzzing is permanent now. There will always be words growing and forming and preparing to take flight, to take shape. And then, for the extraction, which is difficult, because it takes grace and delicacy and precision and purpose.
It takes time and quiet and listening and trust.
A grounding and a floating. A hush and a hum.
It takes commitment and strength—to close eyes and promise never to ignore the rattle. To always feel, even blindly, for the vibration.
To free each word, so a story can grow.
