The Challenge of Writing: Showing Up

“There are four steps to writing down your soul, and luckily they’re easy to remember,” writes author and speaker Janet Conner. Her four steps are: Show up, open up, listen up, and follow up.

Lately, I’ve been rereading Conner’s remarkable book Writing Down Your Soul, and thinking about her four steps—but especially the first.

Conner says that the simple act of showing up is often the hardest step of all—and the one that requires the most courage. Thinking of my own writing life and that of the writers I’ve taught and coached, I have to agree.

Sitting down every day to a page or a keyboard. Getting those first words down. Ignoring the urge to check your email, have a snack, go back to bed, stare out the window, or to give up entirely. Finding and maintaining focus. Keeping at it through the hours you’ve allotted. As most writers discover, that simple practice of showing up can be surprisingly difficult.

But why? Is it because it’s hard to think of things to write? Perhaps. But even on days when we’re bursting with ideas, we can still find it hard to show up.

Is it because it takes courage to write about the harsh realities of the world? That’s no doubt part of it, too. Yet, many people with the courage to face all sorts of battles find themselves stuck when it comes to writing—so courage isn’t the whole story, either.

Is it because our creativity sometimes dries up just when we need it? Because we’re lazy or tired, busy or stressed? Because the muse is off somewhere drinking chardonnay and listening to light jazz rather than standing over us bestowing her blessings? Again, perhaps all those things play into the challenge of showing up.

But I think the root cause of the difficulty is something else entirely. I think showing up is so hard because it is a leap into the great Uknown. That first word on the page is a step into mystery, the beginning of a journey that will take us places we can’t even imagine. Writing brings us close to the source, to the root, to the very foundation of who we are. No wonder it’s hard.

How much easier it is to turn on the TV and watch the new fall shows. How much easier to tell ourselves we’re just too pooped to write this evening. How much easier to stay in our cozy Hobbit holes, rather than heading out into the wilderness. And yet, when we do leave our quilts and cups of tea and step out onto that trek, what wonders we see, what thrills we experience.

There have been times in my life when I turned away from writing for a day or a month. I’ve always wished afterward that I could have that time back for writing. But there has never been a time I spent writing that I later wished I’d done something else. Not one single second. In my entire life, I’ve never regretted showing up.