There are times when we can’t write as regularly as we’d like. No matter how much we say we will put aside time to write every day, sometimes that decision is taken from us – life has ways of disrupting the tide of our creative flow.

I try not to see those periods as worthless – I like to think of them as a resourceful reprieve to collect new ideas, observe the world around me, and stumble upon characters. It’s a time to breathe and discover, allowing images and words to naturally coalesce without the pressure of a blank screen. It’s been said that writers don’t take vacations, and that may be true as we are always writing in our heads, but like everybody, we will have moments of inactivity and we shouldn’t be intimidated by them. Imagine this idle time as a glass slowly filling with the liquid of our creative matter – eventually the fluid will reach the top and we will soak the page with a new fusion of narrative, words, images and mystery.

Don’t fear the empty vessel of inactivity – trust that it will always be replenished