My Mind Was Never Meant to Stand Still

megavchn2
Jun 29
3 min read

There is a constant tug-of-war inside my head, but it has nothing to do with good versus evil or chaos versus peace. It is simply ideas competing for attention.

One story is halfway written when another suddenly demands to be heard. A blog appears while I'm making coffee. A character I've barely thought about in months decides the drive home is the perfect time to reveal who they really are. By the end of the day I've mentally built three different worlds, solved fictional problems that don't exist, outlined an entirely new novel, and somehow forgotten why I walked into the kitchen in the first place.

Then I sit down to write and wonder why nothing is getting finished.

For the longest time, I believed discipline meant forcing myself to finish what I had already started. The Hollow Girl comes first. No new ideas. No wandering. No distractions. Finish one project before allowing another to exist.

It sounded responsible.

It also made writing feel suspiciously like work.

The strange part is that I still love The Hollow Girl. I know exactly where she is going. I know how her story ends, and I know the moments that are still waiting to be written. The problem isn't that I've fallen out of love with her.

The problem is that right now...

she isn't talking.

Another story is.

For a while I fought that feeling because I convinced myself that if I let my mind wander, I would never finish anything. I imagined a lifetime of half-written novels collecting dust because I chased every new idea that crossed my path.

But when I looked back, I realized something I had never given myself credit for.

Every story I've ever started eventually called me back.

Not because I forced it.

Because it was ready.

The ideas never disappeared. They simply waited until I was ready to hear them again.

That realization changed something for me.

Maybe creativity was never meant to behave like an employee waiting for instructions. Maybe it behaves more like the tide. Some days it rushes toward you with such force that you can barely type fast enough to keep up. Other days the water barely reaches your feet, and every sentence feels like you're dragging a boat across dry sand.

Neither day makes you less of a writer.

It simply means creativity has seasons, just like everything else worth growing.

I think we spend so much time trying to organize creative minds that we forget why they are valuable in the first place. They wander because they are constantly making connections. They leave one path because another suddenly reveals itself. They ask impossible questions and refuse to stop until they find an answer.

Maybe that isn't distraction.

Maybe that is exactly how creativity is supposed to work.

That doesn't mean abandoning every unfinished project the moment something new appears. It means trusting that inspiration is not a straight line.

I don't think The Hollow Girl is unfinished because I've failed her.

I think she's simply waiting for the right moment to speak again.

In the meantime, another story has stepped forward, and maybe it deserves to be heard while it is loud enough to tell itself.

For years I've been trying to make my mind behave the way I thought it should. Stay focused. Stay on task. Finish one thing before touching another.

But maybe I've been trying to force order onto something that was never designed to move that way.

Maybe the stories that come unexpectedly are not interruptions.

Maybe they're invitations.

And maybe trusting my mind isn't the same thing as losing control of it.

Maybe it simply means accepting that this is how it creates its best work.