What Happens When You Mix Ink and Paper

It’s the kind of morning when I don’t think I have anything to write. 

I don’t feel any need to say anything new. 

I feel empty, in fact. 

Yet here I am sitting at my desk waiting and wondering what I might find on the page today.

It’s just ink and paper, yet there is a kind of magic that happens when you mix the two together. 

You can’t predict what might happen. 

The moment the nib of your pen touches the page—whoosh!—something percolates inside your brain, and your curiosity is aroused, and you wonder what will emerge from the other side of your consciousness. 

So you write to find out.

Maybe it’s a memory that you pull from a far-away time in your life. 

Maybe it’s a dream that haunts you after opening your eyes. 

Maybe it’s just the sight of sunlight falling through the window as you get out of bed. 

Maybe it’s nothing more than the sound of your breath or the sound of your pen scratching the surface of the page. 

Or maybe it’s just the feel of your chest rising and falling and the pulse of your heart beneath that reminds you of the waves of the sea and how you’re part of a universe extending beyond where you can see.

And so your pen takes you to places you might have missed if you hadn’t decided to sit down to write. 

That’s the thing about writing. 

It’s a mystery tour of the inner workings of your mind and heart. 

You never know where you’re going until you get there.

Sitting and Waiting

Are you willing to sit and wait for a while?

Are you prepared to sit and wait for more than a few hours a day, more than a few days a week, more than a few weeks a month, more than a few months a year?

Are you capable of sitting and waiting for more than a year?

If you’re not willing to sit and wait for your characters to reveal themselves to you—however long it might take—then how can you expect to write about their world?

One of my teachers told me long ago that she rarely wrote fewer than thirty drafts of a novel or short story. Thirty drafts! 

Sometimes that's just how long it takes.

So, when you finish one draft, or two, or even three, perhaps you’re only starting the process, and there’s more sitting and waiting ahead.

Writing requires patience. Not just the patience to sit and wait for words to come, but the patience to wait until a character is forthcoming and willing to open himself or herself up to you.

Your characters need to trust you, and they can sense your impatience, your doubts, your discomfort sitting and waiting. They can sense when you are afraid of their story, fearful of the truths that may emerge from their lives, reluctant to face the events they want to share with you, unwilling—or unable—to confront the challenges in their day-to-day existence.

If they sense the slightest hint of fear, uncertainty, or doubt, they will remain silent.

They may show you the surface of their lives, but they will withhold the deeper issues, hide the fissures that cause them pain, and conceal the cracks that reveal their need for love and acceptance.

If you can sit and wait, though, they may grant you a gift.

They may tell you who they truly are and how they live their lives and what they want and what they fear and what they’re willing to do for love.

They may give you the gift of a story.

Sometimes writing isn’t just about getting words on paper.

It’s about trusting and doubting, and about being afraid and being able to love, and about hoping and believing in a story that you can't yet see and in characters who you can't yet hear.

It’s about sitting.

And waiting.