How to Get Unstuck in Your Writing Journey

 

Lately, I've been working on a DIY house kit. It's actually the smallest one I've ever worked on before. Considering I've been doing this hobby for a couple of years now, that's saying a lot.

The entire process is a lesson in patience. It's tinier than you can likely even picture, too. It requires me to use tweezers and a careful eye. I also make sure I don't throw a scrap of anything. Who knows what purpose that tiny bead might serve? 

And I came across a challenge that led me to a creative solution that then served as a pleasant reminder.

I ran across directions on how to make a small chair. This was not as easy as it sounds. You have to bend the wires just so, glue it in just the right place, and not actually blow this little thing across the room because you breathed hard.

Worse, it wasn't working. I likely didn't have the right glue, but the truth is that I didn't think the chair could be made. 

I figured, well, this will be a house without a chair.

Before I could admit defeat, I remembered something: a tiny little LEGO kit that I put together last winter. I always keep the scraps of my DIY and LEGO kits, because you just never know when you might need them. 

Turned out, I had perfectly sized LEGO pieces to create a tiny, little chair for my tiny, little house.

I may go back -- especially now that I have the right kind of glue -- but putting this makeshift solution together helped me move on to the next steps.

And sometimes that's what we need to do as writers. 

How often have you gotten caught up in a scene that didn't make sense, just to end up stuck there? How many times have you put a story to the side because you just couldn't make the character fit or the setting work? Or confined yourself to a certain kind of writing, whether it be fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, because you've convinced yourself it's the only kind you should or could write?

Sometimes, we need to put in a makeshift solution, a placeholder, or a fill-this-in-later note to ourselves and move on. 

Unlike our school days, we have freedom of movement and expression as writers. I needed to remind myself of this while building my DIY kit. This isn't an assignment I plan to turn in. It's a creation I'm building for me.

Even though our plan is for our stories, essays, and poetry to be in the hands of our readers one day, there's no reason to remain stuck in place.

Nicole Pyles is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Arlington Literary Journal, The Voices Project, The Ocotillo Review, and Gold Man Review. A poem of hers was also featured in the anthology DEAR LEADERS TALES. Her short story, “The Mannequin of Lot 18,” was nominated for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy for 2024. Since she’s not active on social media very much, stay in touch by following her writing blog at World of My Imagination or her Substack, Nicole Writes About Stuff.