Write Even When You Feel Like You Have Nothing to Say

Some days you sit down to write your memoir with a clear memory in mind, and the words come easily. Other days you sit down, stare at the page, and nothing comes. Either way, you write.

It sounds counterintuitive—how can you write when you genuinely don't know what to say? But "nothing to say" is rarely true. More often, it's your inner critic standing guard at the door, deciding your thoughts aren't worth letting through. The way past that guard is to start typing, even if what comes out first is gibberish.

Type "I don't know what to write about today." Write about the weather, your coffee, the sound of the house around you. Write that you feel stuck and don't know why. It won't feel like progress in the moment, but keep going anyway, because something interesting almost always happens—after a few sentences of apparent nonsense, a real thought sneaks through. A memory surfaces. A feeling you didn't know you were carrying finds its way to the page.

This is one of the strange gifts of memoir writing. Your subconscious has been holding onto details and emotions for years, sometimes decades, and it often needs a little runway before it's willing to hand them over. The throwaway sentences you write while "warming up" clear the runway. What follows is frequently the good stuff—the vivid, specific, true material that makes memoir worth reading.

So don't let an empty-feeling morning be a reason to skip your writing session. Show up anyway. Type something, anything, even if it feels aimless. More often than not, you'll look up and realize your writing time is over—and you'll have pages you didn't think you had in you.

For more tips on breaking through writer's block, visit writeyourownlife.com.