That’s What I Do

I sat down to write today because that’s what I do. I made a coffee, opened a fresh blank page, and then I waited for something to happen. Usually there’s a sentence hiding somewhere. Sometimes it’s a story from work. Sometimes it’s something my son did. Occasionally it’s just a squirrel making poor life choices outside the window. Today? Nothing.

The ideas weren’t late. They simply didn’t come.

After a while, I started bargaining with myself. Maybe if I looked out the window. Maybe if I moved into the kitchen. Maybe if I opened my notebook for the fifteenth time. Surely there was something tucked away in there that Past Chris had thoughtfully left for Present Chris.

Nope.

It got me wondering whether writers actually run out of ideas. People say they don’t. They say ideas are everywhere. You just have to pay attention.

That’s easy to say when you’re staring at a flashing cursor that’s beginning to feel a little smug.

Maybe ideas are everywhere. Maybe today I just forgot where I put my ability to notice them.

I’ve written about parenthood, animals, snowstorms, grocery stores, flowers that probably deserved a better gardener, and enough strange tiny moments that I sometimes wonder how my life keeps supplying them. Somewhere along the way I convinced myself there would always be another story just waiting around the corner.

Today the corner is empty.

That feels unsettling because, somewhere deep down, I think every writer quietly asks the same question: What if this is it? What if I already wrote the stories I was meant to write? What if the interesting observations dry up? What if all that’s left are grocery lists and reminders to buy dishwasher tablets?

It’s a ridiculous thought.

I know it is.

I’ve had days like this before. Days where I was certain I’d squeezed every last idea out of my head. Then, a day or two later, my son says something that makes me laugh, a customer tells me a story I’ll think about all week, or I notice something completely ordinary that refuses to leave me alone until I write about it.

Not every day needs to produce something brilliant. Sometimes all there is to do is make the coffee, sit down, and see what happens. Some days the page stays empty. Other days you end up writing about the fact that it was empty in the first place.

If nothing else, at least I managed to write this.

I guess that’s what I do.