Writing Isn’t JUST Writing
Do you ever run out of things to imagine? Yeah, me neither. My mind is always active, thinking up new worlds or new stories or new characters. I have journal after journal after journal of jot notes and story ideas.
And most of them will nowhere. It took me a long time to realize that was okay. Not every idea can turn into a completed novel and not every idea should! But I got stuck on this notion that I wasn’t a writer if I wasn’t working on turning those ideas into a book. If I wasn’t “putting in the effort” to write scenes and then revise them, then I must not be doing this whole writing thing right.
But crafting a story for other readers is only one part of the writing process. Playing around with ideas, discarding ones that don’t work, expanding on ones that do is all part of our creativity. So if you’re in that stage, not yet ready to put words onto the page, that’s okay! You’re still doing important, valuable work as a writer.
More importantly, you’re enjoying it. Writing is HARD! Maybe for you it’s the brainstorming, or maybe it’s the drafting, but if you find a part of the process you enjoy, then enjoy it! Turn your ideas into a book if you want to. Don’t turn them into a book if you don’t! Writing is your thing. You get to choose how you do it.