#105: Writing About How I Don't Know What to Write

Lauren's piece sparks many thoughts for me. First, it reminds me of just how beautiful and powerful music can be. My sister and I actually recently had a discussion about how we noticed, especially while we are traveling through new cities or places, music has the ability to bring groups of strangers together and pause time where it is and join with one another to appreciate the instrumentals. Then I thought of how, when I am experiencing writer's block, I immediately put on a relaxing playlist on Spotify I have simply titled, "Writing," and it's amazing how the musical notes can instantaneously stir up and spill new thoughts and ideas onto my laptop screen :) Thank you for this Lauren!  

- Amanda 

Lauren Culbertson    laurenbrooksculbertson@gmail.com 

Writing About How I Don't Know What to Write

I've been wanting to write a CFC blog post for weeks now, but I have struggled to know what to write about. I try to write a good amount outside of CFC too - and outside of my school papers - but have had a bad bout of writer's block recently. It's not that I don't have thoughts, I just don't have...ideas.

If you have ever read Catcher in the Rye and recall Holden Caufield complaining about "phonies", that is usually me. I can sniff out ingenuity in others, and this also often translates into me being a terrible liar. But I was recalling to a friend last night how he has taught me the art of "faking it til you make it." We had spent a summer in South Africa together in college interning for an NGO and taking some courses in international development, and I will never forget how he wrote all six of his papers on the flight home and still managed to do better than me despite my diligent outlining and drafting all summer. When we were back in the US and at the university where we were taking the classes, we were paired up to do an exercise talking about our summer as if we were in a job interview. I immediately started babbling to him about how inefficient the NGO was and how I didn't think we did anything good for the community (all things the two of us had agreed upon before) and there was no way anyone was going to take us and this experience seriously. He said, "chill - just fake it til you make it" and proceeded to spin our entire summer into an eloquent tale of all these important skills he had learned. 

I still think being genuine is important, but I now also think there is value in doing something "good" for us even if we don't feel like doing it until we eventually do feel like doing it again, like exercising or eating well or writing or changing a mindset. This fall, I noticed how negative my thoughts were and ungrateful I tended to be about the little things in my life. So I made a playlist called "Formative Celebration" with songs that are just that - celebratory (for example). Just by listening to this music, I could feel my thoughts shift and my spirit lift even when I wanted to stay in my melancholy slump. It formed my brain to think differently and create new normals.

With the new year and new resolutions, making "faking it til you make it" is what we all need a little of to keep those goals alive.

Lauren's first-person bio: 

Someone once told me that I "move" when I see the “earth out of alignment,” which is just a fancy way of saying that I’ve always had a natural inclination to pay attention to what happens in the margins; that’s where the most exciting things happen, after all. That brought me to Restore NYC, an anti- sex trafficking nonprofit, where I work to inspire generosity and help our fundraising team make data-driven decisions. I experience the most joy in my work when I witness two things clicking inside someone: sex trafficking is a major issue that is closer than we think, but it has a solution that we can all be a part of.