I am at P-Con this weekend. Sitting, as is my wont on a con weekend, in the lobby quietly sipping my frankly dreadful hotel coffee (this hotel has only room keurigs, no lobby coffee, and dehydrated creamer does nothing to tame bitterness), and tapping away on the writing device of choice. 

I did not hit my writing goal yesterday, for the first time since I decided that I would be writing a thousand words a day until the end of the year. However, I’m not unhappy with my progress of a few hundred words given that Friday contained far more than the con and much company of good friends. I still managed to write, and today I will write early, rather than trying to come up with story past nine at night and coming up blank. 

I have been managing far more than a thousand words most days. The average means I can take a short day in stride. That, and even a day completely unwritten would not necessarily be a failure. However, I want to talk about something else today. The blank wall of stress and depression that builds up between the creative and their imaginations. 

Talking with so many friends, sharing joys and burdens, gave me much food for thought (soul food, conversations are!) and two in particular stood out when I contemplated what I’d write about today. One was the reaction of a friend who threw up his hands when I explained my thousand word goals. I looked at him in surprise, told him that it’s a modest goal, I was once able to do much more in a day. He laughed and told me that didn’t help, so I walked it back to when I began writing and thought I couldn’t write a story longer than 2500 words, and those weren’t written in a day. I wrote a lot of flash fiction. I had many days where I might have managed a few hundred words and been happy, not mildly disappointed in myself. However, the more I wrote, the more I could write. I’ll get back to the point where I can produce a few thousand words on command. And he can get there, too. Like any exercise, you start where you can, then slowly add more until you have reached your capacity. 

Which leads me to the other, half-finished conversation I intend to complete this weekend – and if not, one of you will be reading this from a link – about depression and its effect on creativity. It’s not simply that you wake up one day and find there is a blank wall all around you, not simply an obstacle you can go around, but a dry, cold, opaque barrier. That happens slowly, edging upwards – or perhaps you sink – making it more difficult to gain access to your joy, the beauty of your soul that comes out as what we call imagination. Finally you find yourself at the bottom of a dry well, wondering if this is the end of that, and what will become of you now. 

It is not an end. It is, quite simply, a challenge. Overcoming it may require outside intervention, much will depend on the precise etiology of your challenge. Personally I have dealt with it stemming from more than one cause, I can assure you that it will pass. It will also require you to take some actions, which may at first seem like they are silly and pointless, even if you are also seeking help externally. Get up and move. As much as you can, at first, which may only be a few steps. Get outside in the sunshine. Reach out to someone you care for – if you can’t bear to talk to them in person, drop a postcard in the mail, or a letter. Give yourself grace on days you don’t manage any of these, much less all. Sit down and write a few words, and don’t mind if you think they are ‘bad’ because how can words be bad? Worry about their arrangement later. 

Finally, bear in mind that (as stupidly controversial as this may be in our crazy years) male depression presents differently than female depression. The men of my acquaintance or family will withdraw, becoming more and more silent. I learned the hard way over the last several years that cardiac symptoms and depression mask and confound one another. Check on your friends. Reach out and offer a cheerful word. It’s up to them what they do with it, but cheering them on might be helpful. 

The empty well, the blank wall, they are temporary. Prepare your groundwork first – trite, for me to say to take your writing blocks and stack them into a stair to climb up and out, when you can easily say ‘how?!’ A few words a day, that’s how. Read good books, even if you can only manage a few paragraphs at a time. Listen to music that makes your heart lift. Take a walk. Do something, every day, and that tiny momentum will build over time. Give yourself grace. Frustration over lack of production snarls you up like a cut barbed wire fence that coils around you and will rip you to the bone if you don’t stop fighting yourself and patiently begin to snip through it a strand at a time. 

For men? I’m not an expert, but based on my observations I’d say they need to do more physical exercise, more social outreach, and get off the internet (if you don’t know what black-pill means, don’t look it up. Just get off the angry bitter online scene and go outside. Touch grass.). Finding someone they can trust, and begin to talk to, and no, I don’t actually mean a therapist here. Therapy for men, and in particular men in certain fields, is fraught with fears and perceived dangers. Black humor with a buddy while out walking the hunting dog pretending to be in search of meat on the hoof may be more effective than any blank-walled medical office. Every one of you is going to be unique and different. Every one of you is worthy of you taking the time to befriend yourself, stop talking to yourself like that, and start working towards where you want to be, in a joyous imagination alive with action, adventures, and characters who you can write down their stories. It’s just going to take time. Preparations. You can’t just lower your head and bull your way out of this. 

A few words at a time. That’s where you start.