What helps me create?

Sometimes I wake up at 3 a.m. and already know the words won’t come tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either. The screen of my computer glows in the dark, with a blank writing document. Cursor blinking like a tiny god, demanding something be put on the screen

Writing has taught me a lot, not the least of which is that it does not care about my schedule. Or my good intentions for said schedule. Some days it comes easily. Words flood out of me before I know what to do with them. Other days, and these are most days, let’s be real, writing needs wooing. It needs just the right alchemy of alignments in the universe to pry open the door separating K of the day from K who lives on the pages of my dreams.

I have several rituals that I stick firmly to. The first would be my house at night. It feels different at night than during the busy, noisy day. It’s empty and more hollow. When the world sleeps, the rooms sigh in relief. The hum of the refrigerator sounds like chanting monks. White noise meditation for the broke minimalist. Blackness outside my window transforms the pane into a mirror, and I can look inside myself.

Those hours in the dark, right before dawn, become holy. There’s something about knowing there’s no one to interrupt you. Everything I am in sunlight fractures me into a million pieces. Mother. Wife. Friend. Overnight, those labels smooth back into one. At 2 a.m. I am simply a writer. The words I write during those witching hours are pure. Dreams captured on a page. I’ve stayed up all night writing words from 2-5 am. Only when I open my eyes do I realize I didn’t see those 5,000 words I had written that are now on my screen.

When the silence becomes too thick. Too oppressive. I go ghost hunting. Okay, maybe not literally hunting ghosts, but ghost-hunting shows are my writing companion of choice when I can’t find stillness in the dark. I pop on episodes of Ghost Hunters or whatever paranormal investigative team catches my fancy at the moment. Usually, I find one that is specifically exploring abandoned insane asylums. Night-vision cameras everywhere paint my vision a ghastly green as I peer over their shoulders, watching but not watching. Trust me. It’s ambiance. The shows don’t matter. I barely watch them. It’s the background they create. Ghost hunters creep slowly through empty hallways. Their every word and movement quivers with fear, and I soak it in.

Or I’ll tuck in my earbuds and listen to crime podcasts. True crime narrators will fill my other ear with tales of murder and mayhem while my mind projects mysteries onto my screen. My go-to is Lore. Listen to this guy tell me stories about alchemy and pagan worship between writing sessions. I’ve listened to old Lore episodes like four times at this point. Ask my husband, as he complains about having to listen to the same episode over and over. He’s ok with me listening to Evanescence albums on repeat, though. Amy Lee’s writing is basically the soundtrack to my creative life. There’s just something about all of that passion and darkness that bleeds into my work. Romantic Goth whimsy tends to weave its way into my sentences whether I want it to or not.

Sometimes, when the quiet refuses to come. When my insomnia mocks me, and the blinking cursor is too much. I hide in my happy place. There’s an area we jokingly refer to as my personal room. My own private sanctuary from the rest of society. Okay, it’s not that bad, but I spend way more time in there. It’s where I spend most of my writing days, tucked away with my laptop. Posters of vintage horror films adorn the walls. I own an embarrassing amount of blankets and pillows, all in deep shades of red and black. There are candles I never light but absorb their ENERGY or whatever. It’s crammed with bookshelves that the walls barely contain. Throw in a chair that I sit in more times than I care to admit, a laptop toppling off my lap, and you have my happy place. Every part of that room holds me. Literally and spiritually. I’ll flip open a book and read for pleasure because Lord knows I don’t do enough of that. Not for research. Not to take my mind off of the blinking cursor to distract me. Just to remember how it feels to escape into the words of another author.

No one in that room judges me if I stare at a blank screen for an hour. Or if I spend that hour scrolling Facebook instead of writing. Hell, it doesn’t even judge me if I spend that time arranging my bookshelves by color instead of genre.

Look, I get it. Routine can be constricting and limiting. Something to break out of once you “make it.” What if being ritualistic is part of your process? What if, far from holding you back, those other times when you don’t follow your “rules,” they’re the very thing that allows you to create at all? I’m learning my rituals aren’t pre-writing. They are my writing.

It’s how I tell my unconscious brain to take off your armor and let the magic flow. Writing is vulnerability. Something that no one wants to feel during their nine-to-five, but as artists, we lean into. We embrace. My rituals don’t motivate me to write. They allow me to give myself permission.

Permission to be weird and to acknowledge that my creativity does not come when I demand it. It must be wooed. Seduced back into my mere mortal body until it can no longer be contained on the page. Those are the magic moments. When the stories take me over, and I am no longer wondering how to find the words.