You are not a one-hit wonder.

A hand holding a sparkler in low light.

There’s a deep misconception I hear all the time about being a writer. It sounds something like this:

You’re in a swell of creative momentum and it feels fantastic. Ideas are pouring down on you. You feel enlivened, emboldened, confident, clear. You tell yourself: This is it. This is what it means to be a writer. Then, something happens. The clouds shift. The momentum slows. The doubts come back. And all of a sudden, you can’t find your way back in. Your head fill up with thoughts like:

• That was just a phase.

• It was too good to be true.

• I’m done forever now.

• Who did I even think I was?

• I’m not a writer.

If you can relate to this, please pause, take a breath, and hear me when I say — everyone thinks like this.

I’ve never met a single person who receives their drive and inspiration in steady, ongoing doses. We ebb and flow. We bloom and fade. High tide, low tide. Over and over and over again.

When I’m not busy beating myself up about this, it actually makes sense to me. Writing is how we express our deepest ideas and values, but we find and make those by living.

We need to get our hearts broken, succeed and fail at work, get bored, get mad, have a crush, read the news, phase out, lose a friend, grow into new identities — all the stuff of life well-lived, in order to be able to write.

We circle back and forth from the stage to the green room, making up the script as we go.

The trick, then, is trust.

When we haven’t written in ages, it can feel like a kind of dying. The grief and disconnection can be so hard to experience that it’s easier to turn our backs on the whole thing.

But it does come back if we let it, sometimes on its own, more often with a little prompting. I asked some of the team to weigh in with the things that help them turn the tap back on and here’s what they said:

• Ailsa reads over old work, listens to inspiring music, and gives herself time to daydream.

• Mari gets on the road, goes to a cafe, beach or trail, and watches what’s happening.

• Sophia loves rituals, especially going to her local diner early in the morning all alone, ordering her regular breakfast and just waiting.

• Lesley comes to Morning Coffee Sessions.

• Heather relies on movement practices.

There are so many ways to come back.

We would love to host you, and help you find your way back to the drive and momentum that feel so damn good.

Ok, I have one more thought on this.

I’ve been talking about the fear of dry spells with some community members recently (shouting out Peg, Bryen, Jess, Kat, and Amy) and one person said — “writer” is not a verb. It’s a way of living.

You’re a writer because you love to write, because you care about making things with words. You’re a writer because you’re reading this. You’re a writer right now. It feels great to be a writer who writes things, but you don’t have to prove anything to pull up a seat at this table.

In it with you,