What to write about when you don’t know what to write about

my best tips and tricks because I couldn't make this week's essay work

I’ve been trying to write about falling in love with clothes after decades of resenting everything about them: buying them, thinking about how I look in them, worrying about the impact of them on the environment, stressing about what to wear when I gave a talk.

What changed? Why did I start loving dreaming up outfits? I thought there was a link to my acceptance of aging and of my mom, years after her death from Alzheimer’s. Betty loved to dress up!

But the essay refused to take shape. I couldn’t find the point.

me modeling in front of the microwave - the pearl necklace I designed from my mom’s pearls

But it got me thinking -- what do you do when you need to make progress on your book or publish a newsletter or something else, and your idea won’t shape up?

I’ve been writing a weekly newsletter since 2000. It’s made me a better writer and forced me to dig deep because you can’t publish too much nonsense and expect people to stick around. I’ve also published nine books and two novels, and a memoir that I DNFed.

Here are my thoughts on how to keep writing when the muse is giving you the finger.

Go outside to find your point

Most things we write need a point.

If you’re writing a chapter in your non-fiction book, you need it to further the case you’re making for the reader, connect with what comes before and after. A novel? You need the scene to move the story forward in some way. A newsletter? What’s the takeaway or insight for the reader?

Writers often resist making a point if they love being in the flow with their prose or if they’re afraid they don’t have a point. But resisting only puts off the pain.

Try this: write outside your piece, in your journal or a new document, instead of revising to find your point. Give yourself freedom to write about the work rather than bang around inside the work.

These prompts might help:

• What this piece is really about is…

• What I’m avoiding saying…

• What the reader needs to know next… because…

• Because of what happened in the last chapter/scene, my character now must…

• If I had to choose what this is about, I would choose… because…

Sometimes when we’re focused on making a piece hang together, we skip over the deeper work of developing the bones of the piece, the point. It’s often easier to do that thinking when you give yourself space.

Permission to veer

Sometimes we can’t find the way forward because we’ve trapped ourselves in a false construct of what our work looks like or is about, or because we need to play.

For example, this newsletter is mostly about it’s not too late -- a very elastic theme I love. But for this issue, I’m veering into writing about writing. I needed to take a left to find something useful to say. (see Revisit Your Principles below.)

Throw shoulds and “I don’t know how that fits in my narrative!” and “That is not what people read my newsletter for,” out of your studio. Let yourself open the door of your project wider and try something different, just for today.

If you’re stuck on your novel or memoir, try writing in an experimental style. Look at Candy House by Jennifer Egan or Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer for models.

Or write in the style of Raymond Chandler or Octavia Butler, or another writer with a distinctive voice for a page or two.

If you're writing a newsletter or personal essays, try a different format such as Q&A or a braided essay, or veer off-topic for an issue.

Experiment to break free. It doesn’t always feel easy, and it might feel like a waste of time, and it might yield a breakthrough.

Get weird

Are you taking in art that isn’t directly related to your project(s)? Watching off-beat movies, reading something challenging, staring at a painting for ten minutes?

Sometimes, writers tell me they only read within their genre or only read research materials because there isn’t time for anything else, and they have to know everything in their field or something bad will happen.

You can’t ever know everything or read everything in your genre, so stop pressuring yourself. Also, being overly prescriptive or narrow about what art you give yourself can dessicate your creativity.

Have some weird art fun. The more out of your comfort zone, the better.

Revisit your principles (or declare them for the first time)

Mary Oliver wrote, "Years ago, I set three rules for myself. Every poem I write, I said, must have a genuine body, it must have sincere energy, and it must have a spiritual purpose."

What are your rules, guiding principles, or intentions for your writing in general or your particular project?

For this newsletter, my principles:

• Be emotionally honest

• Be useful to you (hopefully)

• Enjoy writing it

• Meet my deadline (two Wednesdays a month for this newsletter, first of the month for my writing/reading newsletter) ¹

For my novel, my principles are:

• Write a page-turner

• Create a magic world you love and want to live in

• Reflect and amplify the power and beauty of older women

• Convey the depth and complexity of the mother-daughter relationship

• Explore the themes of it’s not too late to want what you want

• Give words to the grief a dying planet

• Offer hope, energy, and a vision for change

I know it’s a lot, but novels need a lot!)

Rules or principles can steer you back toward what’s engaging to you, which is another way to get excited about writing again. Declaring your principles for the first time will do the same thing.

What’s in it for you?

I write this newsletter because I love writing about topics that help you live as fully as possible, and I write it because it helps me show up for my life. I couldn’t write if it were only about you.

I also hope that if you get value from my words, you’ll pick up a copy of Why Bother (did you know I read the audiobook?) and maybe tell a friend about it. Someday, I hope you’ll read my novel.

Sometimes you lose your way in writing because you’ve forgotten what you want, your too focused on what you think you need to write about to please everybody else.

pick up a copy here or gift one to a friend!

Jump!

Another way to get back up on your writing skis is to skip the setup, the preamble, the throat clearing: all the stuff you think the reader needs to know or you think you have to explain to yourself first because it happened, and go straight for the heart of your piece.

What is the big moment, the take-away, the twist, or the piece of information you know absolutely has to be written next?

Jump right there. Go!

Nobody will read this

If fear of being criticized by a reader or someone you know is stopping you from putting anything on the page, use ritual or your imagination to block out everyone. When I was writing my memoir (never published, failed to find its point!!), I imagined being in a castle surrounded by a moat with the drawbridge pulled up.

Jung made a clay sculpture of his inner critic and would turn its face to the wall when he wrote.

A friend keeps a box by her studio door. It contains small objects that represent each member of her family who she fears will disown her if she publishes her work. She puts the box outside when she writes.

You deserve your words and stories before anybody else does.

Sometimes you have to walk away

Even with all my tips and tricks, my clothes essay didn’t jell… yet. It’s okay, we’ve always got more ideas than we could write in seven lifetimes.

***

Over to you. Do you have a way you get unstuck you’d be willing to share in the comments? Awesome! Or ask me a question about your particular flavor of stuckness, I will try to help.

In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to find the point of my clothes essay.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

1. After decades of rarely taking a break from publishing weekly, I take breaks from time to time, and I also find being strongly committed to two newsletters a month works for me.