Practice patience and become a better writer because of it.Practice patience. After all, good things do come to those who wait.
I never really believed this until I met my husband. It was always my trademark phrase whenever someone would say, "It'll happen; one day when you least expect it, you'll meet someone," to retort with a whiny version of "But I always least expect it. I never expect it. So when's it going to happen already?!" It works in relationships, and so too does it work in writing and creating ideas and tensions to fill your pages with. Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book Patience is a virtue. As are determination, courage, and perseverance. Some people are purely incapable of surrendering themselves to these characteristics. They are powerless to their own faults. They just can't correct them. Try a couple of things to practice your patience. Let an old friend tell you everything you've missed out on in their life over the three years that you haven't seen them. Don't even share a tidbit about yourself. See how long you can last. Keep trying this type of exercise until you get more and more minutes tacked on. It doesn't matter if the person sharing their life with you is someone you haven't seen in three years, three months, three days, or even three minutes. A lot can happen in three minutes that they may want to share. Give them their outlet to do that. Practice patience. Or, remember that good things will come. Count your blessings. What is good about your life? Why is it so good? There's no room for pessimism when asking yourself questions such as these. So, if all these good things are occurring, and the only thing on your mind is bad, just have patience. Something good is sure to arrive shortly. You just have to believe. Believe it and you can certainly achieve it. Other ways to practice patience are simple: Take a walk. Ride your bike. Swing on a swingset. Do something that seems commonplace - ordinary even - and take it in for all it's worth. Sometimes I like to sit out on a large patch of green grass, listening to the twittering of the birds, watching a placid lake rest calmly as the wind ripples past, causing the tall grass that sits in the water to sway, ever so slightly. The blue sky above is speckled with clouds that look like thought bubbles that usually rest above people's heads. If this scene that I've just created in your mind doesn't scream patience, I don't know what does. There are no sounds to distract you, besides the ones that nature creates. Cell phones are off, computers are put away and journals are taken out. The contemplation of what you will write down next is what keeps you going. This scene inspires patience. You must wait for the bird to fly by and see where it lands. You must wait for a frog to hop into the water and make a loud splash. You must wait for the people in their canoe to float by so you can see where they're going and listen to the distant sounds of their conversation. Patience drives all of these things for which you must wait. If you can't be patient, you can't see all of this occur. The funny thing about this scene is that it could have been changed if the weather was any different. Raindrops and threatening clouds could have been in the sky earlier, which would have foretold a very different scene altogether. You may be asking yourself what the point of this story is, besides the fact that you must practice patience if you're ever in this same type of scenario. Or better yet, you may be basking in my tale of the beautiful afternoon that turned out well, despite the possibility of impending clouds and rain. How many of you can honestly say that you would have been able to practice patience if those rain clouds would have eased their way into the picture? Chances are you would have run for cover, and forgotten about the peacefulness of the afternoon you had just had - the patience you had just shown as you sat around quietly, watching nature take its course. For those of you who do wonder what meaning lies here, I relay a phrase that I'm sure your parents said to you at one point or another: Everything changes. You have to learn to deal with it. And so, you must deal with it (whether it is the weather or some other factor) and be patient about it. You only become stronger by practicing patience. Use the changes in life to profess gains, losses, challenges, growth, upheaval, truths, and whatever else may be on your mind as you write. Write with whatever emotions you feel when change occurs. It is these changes, these choices of how to react to these changes, that make you who you are. Practice patience in your life and good things will come. Writing will come. So your writing will be more indicative of not only who you are, but who you were and who you are going to be. Your writing will flourish through this incorporation of past, present, and future.
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