Nikos Panaousis

Dear Reader,

I have been comfortable for too long.

And comfort kills the creative process.

But you know what else kills creativity? Worry.

Ernest Hemingway, the most renowned American author of the 20th century, believed that the greatest impediment to a writer is the act of worrying, for it has this remarkable ability to chip away at the writer’s identity and exhaust the writer’s literary and creative reserves.

The sources of worry in a writer’s life are numerous, and it becomes a balancing act trying to limit external influences in favor of a delicate writing routine and an even more fragile flow state.

It is this attempt, of trying to balance external influences with internal pursuits, that causes debiliating inaction for most writers. In my case, this attempt has been complicated by an amalgamation of health issues that have completely shifted my attention away from reading and writing.

So, the question then is, what can one do to preserve their writer’s identity from fizzling out in the face of relentless adversity? What can one do when worry and comfort have become too deeply ingrained in one’s life?

The answer is simple: one ought to keep writing.

A harsh, pretentious prescription when everything else around you seems to unravel into chaos, but continuing writing is all you need to break free from the worry, to shift your attention into the things that matter—to show yourself that there are things in life that you can, and cannot, control, writing being amongst those under your control.

Start slowly at first. Write a few sentences, and then rewrite them. Allow yourself to make mistakes—to let your rigid, unpracticed prose on the page, without judgement, without comparisons to your previous works of, perhaps, better quality.

Your creative muscles will need some stretching before they regain their strength.

This is what I am going to be doing for the next thirty days.

I am breaking free from the chains of worry and inaction by focusing on what matters. Starting today, and until the end of the challenge, I will be publishing five pieces of writing, every week, on my website. They will not adhere to any particular theme, the goal simply being to write more about any theme or idea that happens to occupy my mind.

To quote Hemingway again, “all you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

And continue from there.