Leah Griffin

A running list of story ideas sits in my notes apps untouched, waiting to be written about.

Writing is an incredible aspect of my life. It allows me to express myself through well-thought-out words scattered across a screen, published online, where only about five to ten people will read. Writing brings a sense of calmness, sometimes stress, and even anger; however, all the emotions disappear when the right words come out to perfectly express what I wanted to explain.

This usually isn’t the case.

Unfortunately, writing only seems to come easily when the topic isn’t truly mine. When it’s a prompt—recent events, history, or even research analysis—I can write. The words spurt out in a perfectly organized manner, as if they were already planned out beforehand. In situations like these, writing feels less like creating and more like answering, like there’s a correct answer hidden somewhere, and I just have to find it. But life is filled with dramatic, sad, and crazy moments that can be perfectly pieced into a niche poem or a beautiful column to describe my emotions in a plethora of different writings. I never seem to be able to piece it together correctly. 

Biting hangnails, music, friendship. The list of various topics and ideas to write about grows every day, reaching over twenty ideas in the span of only a few months. Each time I open the Google Doc to begin writing, though, the idea blanks and fades from my memory. 

My mind stops, and immediately, I am faced with a blank white screen and a blinking cursor, waiting for something to happen. It never happens. My Google Drive has become a kind of archive—thirty or more documents filled with a few words that never became anything more. Each one holds a fragment of something I once thought I could explain. Each one ends the same way: unfinished, abandoned, quiet.

From the outside, it probably looks like writing should come naturally to me. Life is everywhere, and it’s beautiful. Life is full of things worth writing about, but unfortunately, they never get their exact wish. There’s beauty in the obvious—the dramatic skies before a storm, or the low hum of everyday routines—but also in the small, almost forgettable details, like the family of raccoons living under my deck or the way music can make life feel energetic. It seems like at all times in my life, there can always be something creative to write about.

But when I try to translate these big ideas into words, it comes up empty.

Surely it isn’t a lack of ideas. Maybe it isn’t a lack of creativity. Maybe it’s something that isn’t visible on the surface level—something that is deep within me. Because the emotions are always there, and I can feel them. I can feel it through every moment I begin to write. I just can’t ever seem to think deeply enough to shape them into something understandable. 

Maybe the problem isn’t that I have nothing to say.

Maybe it’s that I’m unsure of how to begin saying it.