What do a ballot and a blank page have in common? Both require you to believe your voice matters. And both are absolutely useless if you never do anything with them.
This is my writing quarter.
Everything—and I mean everything—should be focused on writing.
My job during this season is simple: to encourage you, motivate you, and get you into those chairs. Whether you’re transcribing, dictating, punching keys on a keyboard, or riding around with a notebook tucked into your bag, I want you writing.
That’s my commitment to you.
But as always, we live in a world.
And this world has ups and downs. There are wars, political diatribes, disasters, and the everyday frustrations that make us want to scream into the void.
And then there’s The Cheesecake Factory.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: LPETTET / Getty (from the Atlantic asking to leave the Cheesecake Factory out of the fight)
Yes, it still exists. It’s gaudy and gold and over the top, like former President Obama alluded to this past weekend in Cleveland.
New York Times spent time on Cheesecake Factory!
We go for the spectacle, the oversized plates and, the cheesecake. It’s still delicious. And yes, sometimes a slice of cheesecake seems like the only reasonable response to the madness happening around us.
But since I would still like to fit into my wardrobe, I have to find another way to process my feelings.
For me, that way is writing.
And maybe it can be for you.
Writing Through the Madness
One of the reasons I talk to you every week is that I need a place to channel my emotions. Sometimes that emotion is joy. Sometimes it’s frustration. And sometimes, it’s rage—hot, burning lava.
I need a place to spew about my perspective on the world. Not because my perspective is more important than anyone else’s, but because I’m a writer.
And a writer has to write.
The emotions I experience need somewhere to go. If I don’t process them, they’ll occupy every corner of my brain until I feel like my head might explode.
So I write.
I write about what troubles me. I write about what inspires me. I write about the things I cannot change and the things I desperately wish I could.
Sometimes I pour those feelings onto the page. Other times, I consider pouring them into a cheesecake.
But again, the wardrobe must work.
So writing wins.
Now, you might be wondering what any of this has to do with today’s lesson.
That’s a fair question.
I know it sounds as though I’m rambling, but I promise I have a point.
You do not have to wait for the perfect moment to write.
You do not have to wait for the perfect words, the perfect atmosphere, the perfect inspiration, or the perfect alignment of the planets.
You simply need to write.
Free Your Mind by Filling the Page
I’m a tremendous proponent of journaling.
Take a notebook, a notepad, or even an artist’s sketchbook and put your feelings on those pages.
They don’t have to be beautiful.
They don’t have to be organized.
They don’t have to even make sense to anyone but you.
The point is to release the thoughts that have taken up residence in your mind without paying rent.
Think about how much mental energy we spend replaying conversations, worrying about current events, or imagining everything that might go wrong.
Those thoughts take up space.
Writing them down can help free that space.
And once you’ve released some of that emotional clutter, you may discover that you have more room for the creative work you actually want to do.
Your novel.
Your short story.
Your poem.
Your next great idea.
Sometimes, before you can create the world you imagine, you have to make peace with the world you’re living in.
And that brings me to something else that’s been on my mind.
Your Voice Matters Beyond the Page
We’re in an election season.
So I’m going to take this opportunity to say something important.
Make a plan. Get informed. Go vote.
Exercise your civic duty.
People have fought, suffered, bled, and died for the right to enter a voting booth and make their voices heard.
That is not an exaggeration.
Think about the generations of people who were denied the ballot because of their race or sex. Think about the suffragists who marched, protested, and endured imprisonment. Think about the civil rights activists who faced violence while demanding equal access to the polls.
Think about the people who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965 and were beaten for demanding voting rights.
Think about Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose death helped inspire the Selma voting rights campaign. Think about Reverend James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, who were killed during that struggle.
These were real people who paid extraordinary prices for the freedoms we exercise today.
And yet, I still hear people say, “My vote doesn’t matter.”
Really?
Look at your gas prices.
Look at the cost of beef.
Look at your grocery bills, your taxes, your schools, your roads, and the policies that shape your everyday life.
No single elected official controls all those prices or circumstances, but public policy influences our economy, our opportunities, and the communities in which we live.
Our choices have consequences.
And so does our silence.
Now, you might say, “Well, I have the right not to vote.”
Of course you do.
I also have the right to walk into the street blindfolded and hope a car doesn’t hit me.
But I have more sense than that.
And I hope you’ll recognize that having a voice means having an opportunity to use it.
You may feel discouraged. You may feel overwhelmed. You may believe that one person cannot make a difference.
But the answer to feeling powerless should not be to surrender.
Sometimes the answer is action.
And that brings us right back to writing.
The Ballot and the Blank Page
Voting and writing have something powerful in common.
Both require you to believe that your voice matters.
When you vote, you’re participating in a collective decision about the world you want to live in.
When you write, you’re exercising your imagination to create a world that doesn’t yet exist.
You’re declaring that your ideas deserve consideration.
You’re deciding what matters, what should be questioned, and what possibilities deserve exploration.
You’re giving shape to something that previously existed only in your mind.
That is a remarkable kind of freedom.
And I don’t want you taking it for granted.
I don’t want you sitting on your laurels.
I want you sitting in your chairs.
Because butt-in-chair is still one of the best ways to get things done.
If you’re discouraged by the direction of the country, get informed and vote.
If you’re discouraged by your writing life, sit down and write.
I know that sounds overly simplistic.
But sometimes we spend so much time in our heads that we make things far more complicated than they need to be.
We convince ourselves that we need another class, another notebook, another software program, or another three months of research.
We decide that we cannot possibly begin until we know exactly how everything will end.
And while we’re busy preparing to write, we aren’t actually writing.
Let’s change that.
Start Small. Write a Haiku.
When I was in school, I loved writing haiku.
Three little lines.
* Five syllables in the first.
* Seven in the second.
* In Five in the third.
Seventeen syllables to capture a thought, an observation, or a moment.
There’s something wonderfully freeing about a small assignment with clear boundaries.
You don’t have to write an entire novel today.
You don’t even have to write a chapter.
If you’re stuck, write a haiku.
Give your mind freedom.
Build a concept; let it grow.
Challenge yourself now.
See I’ve haiku’ed myself into expressing my idea within boundaries.
That’s writing, taking a formless notion and giving it shape.
We can turn an impulse into language. That’s freedom.
And please know, not everything will be brilliant.
Some of it will be junk.
Most of it will be a mess.
But there will be glimmers of beauty.
So write anyway.
Somewhere inside all the clutter will be ideas that become something extraordinary.
Why I Love a Fast Draft
I love dictating the first draft of a book.
Why?
Because it gets all the gobbledygook out of my head.
By the time I’m ready to draft, I’ve usually done a tremendous amount of research. I’ve thought about my characters, their relationships, their histories, and the worlds they inhabit.
There is a lot happening in the old noggin.
A lot.
And if I spend every moment worrying about perfect sentences, precise grammar and syntax, I’ll never get all those ideas onto the page.
Dictation helps me move past that.
Now, dictation isn’t perfect. Far from it.
Sometimes I go back and read a sentence and wonder whether I was speaking English.
But that’s okay.
The first draft isn’t supposed to be perfect.
It’s supposed to exist.
At that stage, I’m not obsessing about flowery flowing words .
I’m looking for narrative flow. I’m hunting for character arcs.
I’m looking for story movement.
I’m asking whether the characters are doing what I planned for them to do. Is this development better? What truth has the rambling unlocked.
And because I’ve already done much of my character work, I know what I’m looking for.
Know Your Characters, Then Let Them Move
Before I begin drafting, I want to understand the people who will inhabit my story.
I want to see purpose in action. What have I written that shows progress towards the goals, they are seeking.
I want to understand their perspectives. What beliefs guide them? What convictions serve as their North Star? There should be some evidence of it on the page. If not, that will be fixed in editing and revision.
I want to know their people, the relationships. Who matters to them? Who influences their decisions? Who challenges them, supports them, or stands in their way?
And I want to understand what I call the pseudofact, the lie.
What false belief has a character absorbed? What untruth has met them in childhood and refuses to let them go. The lie shapes how they interpret the world. Is it on the page?
If not, I’ll revisit and fix during revisions.
How I’ve learned to edit for this, that’s another lesson for another day.
The point is that when I understand these elements, I have enough information to begin writing. That’s freedom first draft shows gaps and what I need to revisit, think about, or change.
With words on the page, I have my beginning.
I’m learning or relearning how each character speaks.
I don’t need these scenes to be perfect.
But I need to sit down and write them.
You Cannot Edit a Blank Page
Once that fast draft exists, I can go back and ask the important questions:
Is this the world I want my characters to inhabit?
Are their actions consistent with their beliefs and motivations?
What is the narrative revealing about them that I didn’t recognize during the planning stage?
Where is the tension?
Where is the emotional truth?
Where have I missed an opportunity?
That’s when the real refining begins.
Editing.
I love editing because editing is where the magic happens.
It’s where motivations strengthen, conflicts sharpen, emotional connections deepen, and rough ideas become compelling stories.
American novelist, Frank Norris, author of The Octopus (1901) and The Pit (1903) progressive novels about Wheat and naturalism, said, “Don’t like to write, but like having written.”
In Haiku form:
I don’t like to write.
Nonetheless having written,
I do love that place.
A quick first draft gets me to happy faster.
It’s where I can recognize if a character arc needs work. I give myself grace knowing it will be several rounds of editing before these words, this story will sing.
You cannot join me in Nirvana with blank pages.
You don’t have a writing voice with blank pages.
You cannot improve something that doesn’t exist.
So stop demanding perfection from your first draft. Stop demanding instant change from one vote.
Give yourself permission to write badly, and still hold yourself and politicians accountable.
Give yourself permission to experiment or try something new.
The first draft is not the final judgment on your talent. Neither is one election.
It’s all raw material.
And raw material is something you can work with.
Your Assignment is to Take Action
This week, I want you to do two things.
First, think about the story you want to world. Then think about the world around you — is it currently a world that can hear your truth or does it feel like a fight?
Now write about it.
Take ten minutes with your journal. Write a page of observations. Create a haiku. Dictate a stream of consciousness into your phone.
Get those stories or world thoughts onto the page.
Find time today.
Not tomorrow.
Nothing has to be perfect. The House doesn’t even have to be quiet. You just need to dedicate a moment to put your ideas in print.
Today.
Because every time you choose to write, you’re choosing you, your power, your dreams. Don’t let fear, frustration, or perfectionism silence you.
The Bottom Line
We live in a complicated world. There will always be distractions, disappointments, arguments, crises, and circumstances beyond our control. There will always be reasons to postpone the things that matter.
But we still have choices.
We can choose to engage with our communities.
We can choose to make our voices heard.
We can choose to create something meaningful, even when the world feels chaotic.
And as writers, we have an extraordinary tool at our disposal.
The page.
Don’t wait for the world to become perfect before you begin writing.
Remember:
You cannot change your world by remaining silent.
You cannot hold elected leaders accountable if you never cast a ballot.
So get informed. Make your plan. Vote.
Then get back to your writing.
Put your butt in the chair.
Put your words on the page.
And for if you need a slice of cheesecake or a piece of chocolate or gaudy gold, or fancy journal, or dictation mic get it.
Don’t let anything become another excuse not to excercise your rights or your right to write.
This week’s book list includes:
The Pit: A Story of Chicago (1903) by Frank Norris –
A gripping novel about speculation in Chicago’s wheat market and an examination of how ambition, greed, and the pursuit of wealth can destroy relationships.
Story Genius — Lisa Cron
Shows how a character’s deeply held misconceptions and internal struggles shape decisions and conflicts.
The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
Teaches novelists how to transform emotional experiences into compelling character journeys.
This week’s indie bookstore spotlight is Reparations Club, a Black-owned, woman-owned bookstore and creative space in Los Angeles, California. Purchasing through this episode’s Bookshop.org links supports Reparations Club. If you’re ever in Los Angeles, stop by, browse the shelves, and give them some book love! In fact, check out my other partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches fighting for literacy.
Remember to check my Resources Center on my website for my writing downloads. Lots of free and low-cost tools that I’ve made available to help you on your writing journey.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
If this podcast sparked something in you, show me some love—hit like, share the episode, and subscribe to Write of Passage!
Thank you for being here.
I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
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