Let the Silence Say Something
For every writer who’s ever wondered if the words would return.“Silence is not the absence of creativity. It’s the inhale before the words find their breath.”
Some days, the writing flows with ease—clean, certain, almost euphoric. Other days, it disappears.
Not because you stop caring. Not because you run out of ideas. But because life happens.
The deadlines, the diagnoses, the caregiving, the grief. The way your body aches or your mind spins or your heart just can’t take one more thing.
And suddenly, the craft that once grounded you feels like a stranger. You’re not blocked. You’re just full. Overloaded. Overstimulated. Overwhelmed.
Especially if you write for a living, especially in healthcare or advocacy, where your words carry weight, where accuracy and compassion must coexist, you’ve likely felt it.
You are the narrator of other people’s pain, the translator of complex science, the quiet force behind someone’s understanding of their own story.
But what happens when your own voice goes quiet?
The Myth of Always-On Creativity
There’s a hustle-coded lie that if you’re a real writer, you’re always writing.
Always producing. Always pitching.
If you pause, the fear creeps in:
“Will anyone remember me?”
“Will I ever find the words again?”But creativity doesn’t live on a conveyor belt.
It’s not a faucet you forgot to turn on. It’s a living, breathing thing—sensitive to stress, scarcity, and the stories you carry in your body. When you’ve been holding too much for too long, silence isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a form of self-preservation.
Sometimes silence is your brain saying: “I need a minute.”
Sometimes it’s your heart whispering: “Not yet. I’m still bleeding.”
And sometimes it’s your soul asking: “Can we please just rest?”
Writing While Carrying the Weight
As a nurse-turned-writer, I’ve been here more than once. I’ve written through burnout. Through heartbreak. Through the heavy fog of moral injury and loss. I’ve gone from CPR to SEO. From clinical notes to blog drafts. And some days, I’ve gone completely quiet.
But here’s what I’ve learned in the stillness:
The silence is rarely empty. It’s often asking you to look inward before speaking outward.
Not all writing is meant for others. Some is meant to hold you.
Even one honest sentence matters.
In those seasons, I return to the basics:
→ I write without pressure: notes, fragments, thoughts I don’t intend to share.
→ I ask myself, “What do I need to say, even if no one ever reads it?”
→ I remember that I’m not just writing to be heard. I’m writing to connect. To comfort. To feel.
This Is the Work
We don’t talk enough about the dry spells. The doubt. The subtle panic when you stare at a blinking cursor and wonder if you’ve run out of relevance.
But this is part of it. The whole messy miracle of being a writer. Not just the product, but the process. The parts where you question, hesitate, revise, scrap, start again.
You can be a brilliant communicator and still burn out.
You can create brand voice guides and still lose your own.
You can be a master of words and still need silence to remember why they matter.None of this means you’re broken. It means you’re real.
When the Words Return
If you’re in a quiet spell, let it do its work. Let it clear the noise, soften the edges, heal what’s aching.
Then, when the words come back—and they will—they’ll come from a deeper place.
Maybe not loud. Maybe not polished. But truer.
And when they do, you’ll remember:
You were never empty. Just refilling.