Author: Hayley Clin

In the first part of this series, I discussed how the act of writing is a vulnerable one—this truth feels extra tender for me in this moment.

As I sit down to write the second half of this article, I’m grieving someone I wasn’t expecting to lose and processing the fact that one of my favourite people in the whole world has now lost their soulmate. The entire situation feels ironic, given that this series was pitched and planned long in advance. But here we are, in the tough stuff together, and hopefully this series will support us both in some small way to write the hard things.

1. Let it out

When I first read Gray Davidson Carroll’s “Queer Poetry,” I was utterly blown away. You can practically hear them speaking through clenched teeth, that frustration saturates the entire poem. So, it made sense to me when I learned that the piece was composed in just 15 intense minutes—sometimes, words just need to be let loose.

This approach involves relinquishing form and control to engage deeply and untidily with the topic or emotion. Think meditative stream of consciousness, rage writing, or the unedited frantic filling of blank pages guided by whichever thoughts and feelings happen to pass through you. Try leaving perfectionism, careful word choice, syntax, and grammar at the door. The goal here is to remove that internal censorship and restriction that keeps us from expressing difficult things.

However, because this method can be so emotionally intense, I wouldn’t recommend trying it out at your local coffee shop for the first time. Instead, find a space where you can cry, scream, cuddle a favorite pet or person, take a nap, and whatever else you need to do post-session.

I’d suggest Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones as a great resource if you’re interested in creating a writing practice grounded in this approach.

2. Let your draft breathe

Giving that first draft or an unfinished piece some time and space to rest works particularly well when paired with the approach above. But honestly, this practice is useful for any piece or manuscript. I’m a strong believer in returning to a finished work after a good night’s sleep—something magical happens when you let words marinate for a while.

Also, when we’re right in the thick of writing hard things, those feelings are going to be heavy and overwhelming. Taking some time away from a piece lets us regulate, process, and come back when we’re ready. This way, you can return later, prepared to edit with some more emotional distance.

3. Embrace absurdism

The most terrible experiences are also often the most senseless. We try to find some shred of logic or meaning in these moments. But trauma, violence, and loss resist the coherent narratives and linearity we attempt to force them into. What if, instead of working against this senselessness, we let it become a hallmark of the writing itself?

When writing about hard things, let the absurdity, illogicality, uncertainty, and fragmentation shine through, rather than putting your energy into creating a tidy piece. Embrace features like contradiction, non-sequitur, associative leaps, dream logic, discontinuity, and shifting perspectives.

This approach is not only a great way to overcome writer’s block, but it can also be a feature that reflects experiences with more complexity.

Some examples to learn from:

• “Portrait of the Alcoholic Floating in Space with Severed Umbilicus” by Kaveh Akbar
• “Last night I dreamt” by Maria Giesbrecht
• “Slumber party” by Zoe Korte

 4. Take care of yourself

Writing about difficult things like trauma and oppression are taxing on the mind, body, and soul. While this work is undoubtedly important, how do we make sure we balance this with our own well-being?

Firstly, I’d encourage you to take lots of breaks and pace yourself. Write a little at a time and step away completely if you need to. If something feels too fresh or raw to write about, give it some time. Allow yourself to process emotionally before you try to put it on the page. 

As much as Glossy Planet wants to read your wonderful work, sometimes, taking care of yourself looks like not writing (or at least not writing about certain subjects). Always prioritize your basic needs over submission deadlines.

Also, remember that not all writing needs to be about the hard stuff—in fact, it shouldn’t be. Find a balance between writing difficult things in addition to pieces that are joyous, funny, and comforting. This is one of the points Davidson Carroll makes in “Queer Poetry,” saying in their contributor’s note:

“Our lives are not only the worst things ever done to us.”

Sign up for our summer flash fiction workshop, “Urgent Writing,” led by writer and poet Jaclyn Desforges. 

The act of writing is inherently vulnerable, but this becomes doubly true as we dive into the hard stuff—those painful, messy, and heavy feelings and experiences. These things can be difficult to write about for many reasons. It could be that the subject is deeply personal or private, exploring something that carries immense emotional weight for us. It can be hard because we want, so deeply, to write a piece that does justice to an important topic like grief, shame, trauma, and oppression. 

At Glossy Planet, we look for work that responds to what is going on in the world and reflects on topics of incredible weight and significance. Since October, our challenges have asked you to submit pieces that speak to structural violence, climate collapse, surveillance states, government oppression, political corruption, disinformation, capitalism, and the cycle of war. We very much ask you to write the hard things.

Writing reflects the human experience, and that includes heavy and painful subjects. But how do we cope when those hard things overwhelm or immobilize us? What techniques can help us to navigate difficult themes? 

1. Begin with distance

As a writing technique, narrative closeness creates a sense of immediacy and evokes intense empathy in the reader, but it can also be an emotionally tough place to start from as a writer. Distance is a great tool that can be easily applied in a few ways:

• Create space in time by using future or past tense rather than the present tense. When we write in the present, we psychologically situate ourselves in that moment—instead, place yourself in the position of looking forward or backward.
• Create space using point of view: write in the third- or second-person rather than first person. Let an imaginary person experience the hard thing.
• Create space between yourself and the interior worlds, experiences, and knowledge of the narrator or characters in your piece. Write like an observer or journalist, keep things highly factual and focus on external details and images. This is sometimes referred to as “psychic distance.”

Writing with more distance turns down emotional intensity, which helps if you get stuck or overwhelmed with difficult themes. Once you’ve got a first draft of that scene, image, poem, or story, you can go back and make changes to verb tense, point of view, and level of detail. What’s important is that the bones are there for you to build on now. 

2. Change perspective entirely

This approach isn’t just about creating temporary distance to help you get through your first draft. Instead, this technique defines the piece because you’re writing from an entirely different point of view.

The key is that the perspective should be unfamiliar, absent from the story or poem, or entirely imaginary. This technique is formally known as prosopopoeia, and Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” is a great example of it in action!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Write a poem from the perspective of a family pet.
• Write a scene from the perspective of an abstract concept, such as Sin or Death (John Milton does this in Paradise Lost).
• Write from the perspective of an inanimate object in your home.

3. Use omission and avoidance

Although the self-help industry has led us to believe otherwise, sometimes a little avoidance is exactly what you need. If writing about certain topics feels overwhelming or traumatizing, but you still want to engage with the themes, try a more indirect approach. Omitting something can be a highly effective way to write about it.

There’s an assumption that a piece about a difficult subject needs to be visceral or highly detailed to truly do it justice. But it can be just as powerful to circle closer and closer to that difficult thing without ever fully laying it bare for the reader. Hard things exist in the matrix of daily life; even amongst the destruction of war are mundane acts of living. 

These familiar details hold more meaning than we often give them credit for. For example, in Czeslaw Milosz’s “A Song on the End of World”, the reader is given zero details about the destruction at the center of the poem. They’re left to imagine it by themselves. The effect is haunting and holds huge emotional weight without ever detailing the violence. 

4. Don a shell

When you’re writing hard things, it can be helpful to have a structure to organize your narrative or poem within. I’d recommend trying hermit-crab poems, essays, or stories which involve using a non-literary shell to house your writing. 

This technique provides you with a template that supports you as you write: many structural decisions will come pre-defined, and you can begin with a scaffold instead of that daunting blank page.

To fully understand the possibility and wonder of the hermit-crab, I’m of the opinion that examples are key:

“Are You Allowed to Criticize Simone Biles?: A Decision Tree” by Carlos Greaves

“an instagram frittata” by Samantha Irby

“We Regret to Inform You” by Brenda Miller

“A Lexicon of Palestinian Boyhood” by L.F. Khouri

Here are some shells to get you started:

• an email
• a spreadsheet
• a recipe
• a contract
• a manual
• an obituary
• a set of instructions
• a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet
• a grocery list
• a text conversation
• a dictionary definition
• a medical form

Check out part two of this series next month for more ideas on how to write hard things!

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My creativity has always arrived like the seasons—often unpredictable, but fortunately, inevitable. Rather than fight myself when the words come slowly, I tend to embrace the lull, taking that time to rest and reset. But after a long, cold Canadian winter, my writing needs a little push to emerge from its hibernation.

The creative process is different for everyone, but it’s never going to be perfectly linear or constant, even if you stick to a habitual practice. Maybe the issue will be that you can’t find the words at all, or maybe the words are there but refusing to blossom into something deeper. When we restrict ourselves to the confines of our writing or to our chosen genre, we can easily begin to feel stuck, and those natural lulls in the creative process begin to feel like the enemy. 

So, what can we do to keep our creative selves nourished? How do we cultivate the words when the ground is frozen? How can we help our writing bloom?

In nature, cross-pollination has a lot of advantages over self-pollination, namely adaptation and diversity. Cross-pollinating your writing has a similar effect—and by using it to enrich our creative lives, we can more easily find inspiration and generate ideas. Here are some ways to get that much-needed pollen.

1. Become a fierce art appreciator

I’m of the belief that art creators must also be fierce art appreciators. Not only is this an act of solidarity during an era of endless funding cuts, but it’s also a highly effective way to cultivate creative energy. 

Take advantage of what’s accessible to you, both financially and geographically. And make sure you give attention to small and emerging artists. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll get to gloat that you knew them before they were famous. Live in a big city? Do us all a favour and prove Timothée Chalamet wrong. Go to the opera! Go to the ballet! 

By no means do you need to live in some big city to enjoy art. Even small and rural towns have local galleries, public art, theatre organizations, bands, and festivals. And guess what? They are usually more affordable and have shorter lines for the bathroom.

Recommendations from the Glossy Planet team:

Try ekphrastic poetry. It gets me out of my head and forces me to use my senses. If you find yourself overexplaining in your poems, this is a great way to practice relying on imagery. For inspiration, one of my favourite artists is Matthew Wong, and I recently fell in love with the plein air paintings of Rob Pointon (@robpointonartist). –Hayley Clin

Outside of literature for inspiration, I draw from films such as Pan’s Labyrinth, Mulholland Drive, Amadeus, and Anonymous. I also enjoy listening to classical, ambient, or avant-garde music while I write. There’s something about instrumental music that sets my mind on the right path in the writing process. –Erick Mancilla

I’m a big modern art fan because you bring so much of your own experience to interpreting an exhibit. I love to walk through the quiet of a gallery and see what comes to mind. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles always has interesting pieces, I loved Olafur Eliasson’s exhibit there in 2024 (find more of his work at www.olafureliasson.net). –Ashley Huyge

When I’m in a writing rut, I really lean on books, movies, and TV shows to reignite my spark. I was super burnt out recently and couldn’t resonate with anything I was trying to read — but watching Project Hail Mary in theaters reminded me what’s possible when we lean into our passions and craft. –Rebecca Paredes

2. Do something that isn’t writing

Hear me out. Sometimes the best thing for your writing project is not writing. It probably comes as a surprise to no one that living life is a key part of the creative process. Whether it’s a lifelong craft, fleeting hyperfocus, or casual hobby, these practices help us reconnect with the world, rest our writer’s brain, and nourish our creative selves beyond the dreaded manuscript.

Recommendations from the Glossy Planet team:

I got into sourdough recently. I dabble in dough. When you sling sourdough, you tend to interact with other people more regularly—gifting it, swapping recipes and tips. Few things are as lovely as sharing something you baked with another person you care about. It’s a good reminder that, even though writing is solitary, the rest of our time away from the desk doesn’t have to be. –Rebecca Paredes

I’ve recently gotten into mixed media animations. It’s really a way of doing love letters for my long-distance partner, and I’m enjoying the slow, very involved process. I grab all my arts and crafts materials and go crazy playing with analogue animation techniques, funky colour splashes and doodles which move themselves across the frames. I absolutely adore this part; it’s like hundreds of tiny sketches that can be as messy and silly as I like. The magic of this art form is that once I scan the pages, edit the video, and press play—they are perfect and fun and compelling! –Caitlyn Stone

Try making playlists for your fictional characters. It helps you go beyond external description. –K Roberts

I’ve been really inspired by video games recently. Specifically, I like to use the side quests in games to spark new ideas. Right now, I’m playing Split Fiction with my sister, and it’s been inspiring some new short story concepts for me. –Alicia Caples

3. Move your body

So much of writing is a cerebral and solitary practice that it’s easy to lose sight of the connection between the brain and body. But physical movement can help reconnect us to our senses, calm the mind, and break cycles of thought holding us back. Also, I hear exercise is highly recommended by doctors and scientists. Movement doesn’t need to be hard or complicated, either. It can be a walk around the block, a good stretch, or a solo dance performance alone in your living room—whatever is accessible and beneficial for you.

Recommendations from the Glossy Planet team:

Jiu jitsu is a big creative outlet for me. It requires me to get out of my own head, stay in the moment, and show up regularly—all things that translate to writing. There’s a long history of writers who are involved in martial arts, and I think part of the reason—aside from doing something that is a complete counterpoint to sitting at a desk and writing—is that it’s an endless source of creative inspiration, from the storylines that go into fight nights to the people you meet in gyms. Also, walking! That Thoreau guy really was on to something. I live in an area with lots of trees, and it’s so lovely to go on a long walk with my dogs in the sunshine. –Rebecca Paredes

I bounce a rubber ball. Against the floor, the wall, the ceiling, and then back to me. I do this several times until it clicks in my head where to begin writing and where to go from there. It’s almost like an engine being turned on. The rhythm that comes from the motion of the bouncing ball gets me going. –Erick Mancilla

4. Get out of your genre bubble

Reading books outside your niche can help you find new approaches to writing and spark inspiration. Each genre has its own conventions and techniques for dialogue, tone, structure, and pace. By reading more widely, you’ll expand the devices at your disposal. When you do get stuck or bogged down in your writing, you’ll be glad to have multiple tools to dig yourself out.

Recommendations from the Glossy Planet team:

Get inspiration from old children’s stories. Everybody knows about Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter, but have you ever read them? With the right tone of voice, The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a straight-up horror story. –Jacob Engelsman

Write beyond your usual genre. One of the best poems I’ve written thus far came from a scene I wrote for my novel. I’d also recommend trying shorter-form writing in general. If you’re working on a long manuscript but feeling stuck, finishing a piece of flash prose or poetry can give you that much needed sense of accomplishment and momentum. Get that dopamine! –Hayley Clin

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