Writing through Change

This week has been a doozy—I just taught the last class of a four year academic appointment and the move is getting real. So many emotions!

Some days the only way I am getting through all of them is by staying busy. It doesn’t even matter what I’m doing, as long as I’m not sitting still. And if I can lean into a routine that is already figured out so I don’t have to think or make a lot of decisions—awesome.

I was talking with a friend this week and she shared that she is the opposite when she is under stress—that routines feel stifling. That when she’s overwhelmed, she needs the freedom to sleep more and get lost in thoughts and not have to answer to anyone.

At first I thought, wow, that is totally different than me. Then I realized that in some way, we are both finding ways to disconnect from ‘the thing’—and that feels very much the same.

Writing itself contains these opposites.

Part of me wants rigid structure: word counts, schedules, outlines, momentum. Another part wants to disappear for a while—to drift, to stare out windows, to not produce anything at all, or to get so lost in my words that I don’t care if they make sense.

Maybe creativity has always lived somewhere between those instincts. Discipline and escape. Between facing the thing and circling it carefully until we’re ready. Between planning and pantsing.

I notice this dichotomy especially when I’m trying to write through change.

If I lean too hard on structure, the writing becomes efficient but hollow—something that looks like productivity, like I’m achieving something, but doesn’t quite have the depth and realness I want.

If I lean too far into disappearance, nothing gets made at all or I go so far out into left field that I never come back. Just thinking, circling, drafting in my head.

The work, then, is not about choosing to plan or pants. It’s about learning how to move between them.

Creativity is not one mode. It’s more of a negotiation between control and release, as if we are alternating between structure and drift.

Structure looks like: timed writing, outlines, finishing drafts even when they feel imperfect.

Drift looks like: reading, walking, thinking, writing without intention, letting ideas stay unfinished.

Neither is a “better” writing practice. Together, they create enough tension for something real to form.

Isn’t there a bit of both in all of our writing?

I don’t think any of us are purely planners or pantsers.

Creativity asks for both: structure sturdy enough to hold us, and freedom wide enough to let us disappear for a little while.

The truth is that most of us are probably moving between those states all the time—especially during seasons of change.

We build structure so we can keep going.
We drift so we can keep feeling.

And somewhere between the two, the real writing happens.