When the Words Won't Come

I haven't written in my fiction book for over a month. And honestly? I'm not spiralling about it anymore. In this episode I'm sharing what I've been doing instead, and why I think it might be the most important thing I could do for my writing right now.

I get real about the slump and why this time feels different. Old me would have been forcing it, panicking, making it mean something. This time I stepped back and got curious instead.

I tell the full story of how a true crime show sent me down a Facebook Marketplace rabbit hole and into a stranger's house to find the most beautiful yellow vintage typewriter. It became something deeper than I expected, a return to the kind of writing I started with as a teenager, when putting words down on a page genuinely saved my life.

I also share how I finally caved and bought the iPad I've been eyeing for years, and how jumping into Procreate and digital art has reignited something in me I didn't realise had gone a little quiet.

The big message underneath all of it is this: if your book isn't flowing, go make something else. Anything else. Let your creativity breathe in a different direction and watch what happens when you come back.

Key Takeaways

Stepping away isn't giving up. Sometimes it's exactly what the work needs. Creativity feeds creativity, whatever form it takes. The path back to your book might run through a paintbrush, a colouring book, or a typewriter with no backspace.

"If you're feeling really blocked, try something new. Get your creativity online in some other form, and that will open the floodgates."

What's one creative thing you could do this week that has nothing to do with your manuscript? Do that. Notice what shifts.

Where stories come alive. 

Publishing - www.thedaringpress.com 

Bookshop - www.thedaringbookshop.com 

Writing -  https://www.instagram.com/jennallittle/ 

https://www.instagram.com/jennadaringauthor/

Transcript

Why The Writing Stalled

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Jenna Little Show. Today I really want to talk about something that has been really present for me in the moment. So I haven't written in my fiction book. I've written dribs and drabs and getting slowly back into it for over a month. And old me would be spiraling at this thought that, oh my god, I'm not writing. Why am I not writing? Why is this not working? Forcing it, all of this stuff. But I really stepped back, and one thing that is really helping me to get back into the flow of writing is doing other creative activities. So we are all artists. If you write books, if you're an author, we are artists, we are creatives, we love what we do, we love the craft of creating a story, telling a story, being the characters, writing all of that different form. So what I'm doing is I'm going outside of the writing space and doing other creative things to realign and re-spark that connection to myself and my self-expression and my creative process. So a couple of ways that I have been doing this. So first thing is a story about getting an old typewriter. So I was watching a show and it was a true crime show, and it was based back in the 60s, and it was a crime writer, and she was going upstairs to write on her typewriter, and it really sparked a thing for me of like, um, excuse me, I'm a writer. Why do I not have a typewriter? Like, why do why do I not have one of them? I want one of those. So then that sparked the story of going jumping on Facebook Marketplace, finding a guy that restores old vintage typewriters, and finding the perfect one, going to his house, even though this was even a story, mini story in itself. That when I was going to his house, I said to my partner, okay, here's the address. If I'm not back by this time, send help to this address because I was going to a stranger's house, and you know what it's like on marketplace when you're going to someone's house and by yourself with no one there, it's a bit weird. So I get to this guy's house, he lives in an a unit, and I go in and he's a middle-aged man, and he's in the house in the unit by himself, and I was a bit like, Oh my god, this is like in all those shows, this is in the movies, this is where it like I come in and he kidnaps me and all this stuff. This is where my mind goes in this case. So it wasn't that at all. He was a lovely guy, he had a passion, he was a school teacher, he had a passion for restoring old vintage typewriters, and he got yeah, he showed me all of the ones that I was interested in, and I got to type on them and have a feel for them, and then I purchased one that was just amazing that I loved. It was quite hard, actually. There was a lot that I really liked, and this one was an old um, I think it's called Everest or something, I can't remember the exact brand, and it's yellow, it's like this dull, nice pastel yellow, and I'm obsessed with it. So this really created for me a different way of writing, a different way of expressing, a different way of yeah, different form. It's basically a different form of writing. There's no backspace, there's no technically you can use whiteout on it, but for me, it was very much a practice that I wanted to get into of writing without editing and writing basically like thoughts. And I've done this for a long time. I started my writing journey writing in my journals, and that was my expressive writing and writing out how I was feeling, what I was going through, connecting to myself, discovering who I am, and journaling really saved my life as a teenager when I wanted it all to go away and disappear and not be here anymore. And it that really helped me to be here and connect with myself and fall in love with who I am and develop different parts of me that I didn't know existed, and it just became this whole thing. So that that started off the real crux of wanting to be a writer and turning it then into writing fiction books and all of that. So this was like a different form of like normally I'm used to journaling, writing that, writing in my books and typing on the typewriter. It was just a different form of that writing, it was a different creative way to do it. So I really use it and have been using it as a way of like okay, I want to write out how I'm feeling and what's happening, and writing like little little paragraphs, little scenes, little things like that of like what I truly what truly is on my heart. What does my heart want to say? What do I want to express? What am I feeling? And it's really opened up so much to really connect even deeper to my words, to what I want to say, to how I write. And it's just been an amazing tool and a different outlet. The next story I want to share is the story of getting an iPad. So I have always wanted to learn how to draw on like digitally on an iPad. And every time I look it up, because I am very much not an Apple girly, I am very much Windows, I'm very much every other Android, all of the different other ones, and never Apple. I think I might have had back in the day. I used to get Apple iPad iPods and things like that, and I might have had an iPhone. I think yes, I did have an iPhone 5 back whenever that was, whatever year that was in. And then the battery died, and then I just sort of went off them and went over to Samsung, and that's where I've been since then. So when I was looking into, and over the years I've been looking into digital drawing, digital art, illustrations, all of that. And it's like, yes, you can do this on like a Samsung tablet, but it's just not the same. And it was always about the iPad, the iPad pencil, and even the screen protector that you put on paper-like, so it feels like you're drawing on paper. So I was like, I just had this thing, I just kept watching YouTube videos of people drawing art, and I'm like, I just want to tap back into that. In the day and age where everything is spitballing us to use AI, we're gonna be behind if we're not using AI in different forms. Um, and look, there is a lot of different avenues to use AI in business for automation, systems, tech, that type of thing. But when it comes to the actual art expression and words and writing and art and all of that, yeah, I I don't ever want to use it for that or approve of that in any way. However, there yeah, I felt like very much a disconnect from that, and I wanted to just really go back to creating and being in that. So using different forms to create because I was feeling a bit of a disconnect, as I said, from the current book that I'm writing, and I just wanted to find different other creative outlets that really support being creative. And they're buying the iPad. I went into the shop and I was like to the guy, okay, can you just quote me up for the iPad Air 13 inch? I want the biggest one, I want the Apple pencil, I want the cover, I want the paper like screen protector, all of it. And he quoted it up, and then I was like, uh, maybe just send it to me. Can you save it? He's like, Oh, we can't save it, but I'll do you a good discount because it was quiet today. Anyway, I walk out with all of that. I walk out with all of it, and I've been so happy jumping into like Procreate, creating, drawing, creating patterns, and of course, I got some courses to support other local artists who create pattern designs and then character art and drawing like actual people and illustrations and like all of the things. So that has been a really great creative outlet for me outside of writing, and what it's fueled for me is definitely getting inspired again, getting inspired with art, with writing, with that self-creation and self-expression, and how we create and how we create these stories in our head and in our mind and how we write them and all of it, and all this comes down to and the big message behind this is if you are feeling blocked with your writing with your current book, do something different. Even writing a different book, like a short story for my Patreon community. I do a different story and different short stories and things like that. And what I've found is tapping out of the current book series that I'm in and writing just some fun holiday thing or like a random SEX scene. I don't know if I can say the right word on this, but like just doing something completely different just to get that creativity fueling again, get get that desire building within you, whether it's yeah, writing something completely different just for funsies, whether it's picking up the pen and drawing art, whether it's actually getting a colouring book. I also love doing colouring and actually colouring in, drawing, colouring in, um, you know, getting type like typewriter, different forms of creativity. And I hope you're understanding like where I'm getting at with this, that if the if you're feeling really blocked, try something new. Get your creativity online in some other form, and that will support you and get and open that floodgate for you to express yourself creatively, and then you'll be able to jump back into your book because you'll feel inspired and tap back into the characters and their story and what needs to be told. So that is my lesson and chapter for today's episode.