The most common (untrue) thing I hear from teens beginning their college essay process is that they have nothing to write about. Nothing to say. Girl, that’s a high aim! Monks train for years to attain that state of reverential silence.
But most of us non-monk-types? We don’t have nothing to write about. We just don’t know how to bring it out, how to give it form and structure suited to the task.
30 seconds of “nothing”
Take a minute (literally) and pause that belief, and watch your thoughts instead. Can you hear the non-silence? Can you hear the plenty?
Most of us would ultimately agree: our mind never really stops talking to us. It repeats itself a lot too, in case we missed it the first time. Or the second.
Just try to have complete quiet and stillness inside for 30 seconds and see how many life stories show up. Then follow where they lead as they slip over the horizon of your focus. And, of course, be their scribe! You work for them. 🙂
And if you still (mistakenly) think you have nothing to write about, be a true committed spectator to that state. Watch your nerves fire and charge like Pac Man traveling around the twisting mysterious corners of your perplexing consciousness. It will eat those ellipses right up!
Quick Exercise against “nothing” to write about
For me, a great writing exercise to begins with listing brands. Yes, product brands.
Start with your childhood. Make a quick list of brands in your household. (do it along with me!)
Mine would look like this:
-Ajax dish soap, St. Ives Scrub, Vaseline, Choc full o’ nuts coffee, Jason’s Jojoba Conditioner, Teddygrams
And then I would build out more active memories from there, expanding each brand name into 1-2 sentences:
My dad making his coffee at 4AM, smelling it when I couldn’t sleep. The bowl of teddy grams next to my homework, which I did every day at the same spot at my parents creaking table. My mom’s vaseline self-treatment for dry-skin, which soaked her feet while she read aloud books beyond my level, Pride and Prejudice before I understood what SPURN or subtext really meant.
And then I would choose one of those memories, and use it to begin a 5 minute free write.
Vaseline that coated my mother’s feet, soothed split skin… I later put on myself, despite knowing its toxic origin story, to protect against my crippling fear of jellyfish, so I could swim in a bay without flinching in advance from imaginary tentacles. Jellyfish, the oldest creatures we know of. Or again, when I had a basal cell carcinoma removed, so that the skin would not become inflexible- skin needs to retain a certain suppleness. Suppleness which is not an invention of modern medicine, but recommended even by a medieval Latin (female) poet, writing to the pope on the importance of “staying juicy.” These are all the moments in my life arising out of one brand.
Snapshot of writing exercise
- List brand names
- Expand on a few of them
- Use one to launch a freewrite
- Reread the free write- what more could come from that?
I promise, your mind is many things, but empty is not one of them. “Nothing” is just a lightweight door between you and your next story, and you can open it- now.
Let us convert you to a Writing Believer
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We’ll help you find the themes and sift through the material for the stories that matter most.
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