When folks start writing, it’s something like this:
I have this idea in my head that I need to examine. I can’t leave it unexplored.
When I first started writing routinely, I’d just been laid off from my job. I had a story to tell and nothing but time. So I wrote it, and quickly discovered I had more to say. Ideas started coming, and the more I wrote, the faster those ideas came.
I wrote about the standstill pace of life without work. I wrote about magic: the magic of friendship, the magic of a loving partner, the magic of moving to a bigger city. I read books and made arguments, like this one about healthy masculinity in response to Richard Reeves’ On Boys and Men.
In engineering school, students are taught that flywheels capture and conserve angular momentum. This rotational energy is stored and eventually transformed into something useful. A writing habit is its own sort of flywheel. As writers explore ideas, they realize a single piece can’t capture everything we want to say. So their thoughts are set aside for another day, another piece. They close their laptops brimming with energy, knowing the tunnel they’re digging is leading somewhere worthwhile.
Today was good, but I cannot wait for what’s to come.
If you’re subscribed to this publication, you’ll know it’s been dormant for a while. It’s a quiet, static flywheel.
I’ve sat down to write several times over the last few months, only to find a blank word processor staring back at me, my fingers unsure which keys to clack. I’ve been something of a mechanic in a dark, windowless room, leaving bootprints in the dirt and oil. Guided by a flashlight with small tools in my shirt pocket, I’m examining silent machines, angrily shouting and kicking and slapping as I try to make sense of the messy instructions, wondering how the hell I’m going to get this thing moving again.
Such is life as a writer without momentum. Just a mechanic without a clue.
It’s a purgatory of sorts, something closer to hell than heaven. Because I know if I just sit and focus long enough, the flywheel will come roaring back to life. Ideas will zip from my mind to my fingertips faster than ever, and I’ll close my laptop each day brimming with energy, knowing the tunnel I’m digging has direction and purpose once more.
Good to see you "rolling" again.
Tim