What writing has taught me about resistance

I am having a hard day.

It’s gray outside, and raining. Also cold. I didn’t sleep well or long enough—that’s true of a few other nights this week. It has caught up with me. My body is sluggish. My brain is scattered. My head pounds. I want to write (need to, really), but I can’t find the motivation I need to do it.

I joined a friend at a coffee shop to try to jumpstart my productivity. It’s only sort of working. The music is good, but two clicks too loud. The woman to my right has a great laugh; it’s distracting. The person to my right is talking on the phone. The barista knows everyone here.

How am I supposed to write under these conditions?

The voice in my head answers fast: We can’t. It feels true. The resistance is so strong it seems solid. Like a brick wall. Or some other unmovable thing. I can’t possibly get through it.

I want to lie down.

I remember what years of writing has taught me about resistance: It feels incredibly solid, but it tends to give when you press on it. I decide to test this theory.

I start slow. Resistance may be an illusion, but it still hurts when you throw your body against it too hard. I close every open tab on my laptop. Focus on just this draft. Tell myself I only have to write one line. Just one true thing. Can I do that? Yes. Carefully, I write: “I am having a hard day.” It feels neither great nor terrible to write. I decide to write another line.

Then another.

And another.

Some time later, I pause. It’s still raining outside, sideways now. The music in the coffee shop is still just a little too loud. The barista is still in high spirits. And I am still so tired.

But the resistance from before has been replaced a few hundred words on the page.

I smile to myself, nod. I did it.

When the wall of resistance blocked my path, I pressed against it—slowly but firmly—and wrote what needed to be written. Without steamrolling my own boundaries. Without the perfect conditions. These are big wins for me. I feel proud of myself and ready to write the next thing.

But when I turn away from this draft, my confidence wavers. Resistance transforms from mist back into brick. I stare up at it, feeling small and helpless. Tears fill my eyes.

I am back where I was at the start.

This time I don’t press against the wall. I don’t have it in me to try again. Instead, I lie down on the ground at the base of it. There, curled up on my side, I remember something else years of writing has taught me about resistance:

Sometimes it gives, and sometimes it commands you to rest.