When and Why I Have Nothing to Write

Ever have one of those no-writing days? You know, when you have nothing to say, your voice is empty, your mind is numb? I find those days usually come when I have forsaken reading to do other things.

Sure, spending time with my family and friends, working, and exercising are all important and take considerable time commitments; but did I (or you) really need to watch three hours of “The Office” re-runs last week?

So I find that I skip out on reading not because I have more important things to do, but because I’ve become mentally lazy.

When we read deep, thoughtful articles (less People, for instance, and more Wall Street Journal) and books (Hello, To Kill a Mockingbird; goodbye, Twilight), our minds are sparked into making a thousand connections. What hath Lady Macbeth to do with post-abortion syndrome? Quite a lot, the blood saith.

And while some could multiply connections here, the point here is to encourage you to make those connections. You need to read in order to think, and you need to think in order to write. But why?

Our minds need to learn in order to think. Learning is a function of humility, while writing without learning is a function of pride. And we all know there are too many writers out there who aren’t learners.

Don’t be one. Keep reading, keep learning, then keep writing.

(HT: Michael Hyatt’s repeated motif, “Leaders are Readers”)