There is one way forward. Words to the page. Every day it feels like a bigger risk. Good. Take it, like a treasure left carelessly close to the mouth of a cave or a wallet left peeking from the mouth of a purse.
Take the risk; agree to the fear. Write. Write your way into and out of it, the story alive the way my dog in my lap tenses to the movement of a bird outside, his ear cocked, his head surveying in mechanical jerks before it settles again for a moment or two against my knee.
Write first thing–on the toilet if you have to, on the couch, in bed. Write in the car, in line for groceries, in the small intersticies of your day.
Write in the kitchen. Open your journal the way you might open a bottle of wine, while you cook.
Write at night before you go to sleep. One line, a questions for your unconscious mind to mull over through the night.
Write down the idea that comes, swift and enticing, that seems unforgettable. It’s not.
Write the questions and invent the answers–embodied as characters or memory.
Write what you know is true and what you’ve never thought before and also, write lies.
Lists, descriptions, pleas, plugs, fairytales, curses. If you’re full of doubt, write about that. If you don’t know how to begin, write about that. If you’re blocked, write about that.
Begin with your tools and your time and go. Let it be bad; try for it to be bad. Only one thing matters, day by day: that you write.