Let me be clear. I am not an author but I write. In fact I love writing but I do not call myself a writer. I’m not spinning sonnets or sestinas or but I am a poet. Some of my work has been published but I’ve never published a book entirely of my own work. My husband (who IS a writer) actually really likes my work and tells me all the time what I good writer I am. And yet… I struggle. That’s exactly what I want to address here and now, ‘that’ point between wanting to write and actually sitting my ass down to write.

If you are anything like me, you’re not short on ideas. You find yourself thinking about something you’d like to say and then it turns into something you’d like to write. Then it then it turns into something you’d like to have a conversation about may there others who would also like to have a conversation about it. It grows like that, like a wild passion, a word, a sentence, something that just kind of grabs hold and inspires. I know I’m not the only one that happens to. Not a chance. Yet if that’s true (and I believe it is) why don’t more people do it? There is an old answer and you may not like it, but it’s the damn truth.

“If it were easy, everyone would do it!”

So what is it about the writer that makes them write? That makes them want to write? That helps them get past the angst, the pain, the resistance, the perfection, the comparing, the self-loathing, the laziness, the excuses, the procrastination, the ‘what ifs’ and all the lies they tell themselves, like “It’s too late. I’m too old. No one will read me. I’m not good enough.” How do they do it? How do they leave all that on the cutting room floor? Are they better than us? NO! Are they more talented than us? Maybe. But here’s the bottom line. Writers Write! It’s that simple. talented than us? Maybe. But here’s the bottom line. Writers Write! It’s that simple. They “do the work” and that’s what’s required.

So darlings, I don’t have any magic solution for you and there’s no short cut. However, I can tell you what works for me, without fail, every single time. MOVEMENT. The moment I come to the realization that I’m ‘stuck’, I do something different. I intentionally change the energy… in my space, my body, at my desk, in my head.

Here’s a short list:

My space/room/environment: I open a window. I light a candle. I sit somewhere else. I turn off my phone. I put on some music.

In my body: I stretch. I dance (and I mean put on some Beyoncé or Shaka Kann and dance my ass off). I take off my shoes. I walk in the grass. I grab a book (one of many) turn to a random page, read a random paragraph. I “listen”.

My desk: I put some fresh flowers. I clear off any mess. I put away distractions. I create an altar to my desired state of being.

My Mind + My Thoughts:  And here it is… I write. I journal. I jot down. I do a brain dump. This get’s things moving and I ask myself the ‘big question’. How do I actually want to feel?”

Every time I do any combination of these things, a shift occurs and I get busy. Having more fun. Making more money. Feeling more alive. Creating the life and business and art I love.