I feel like everyone I know is in a rut.

I should specify that I mostly know TV writers who did not staff this TV staffing season, so my “everyone” is pretty specific. I should also specify that by “in a rut” I mean that they’re frustrated, bummed, confused, stalled. No one is threatening to leave the business. No one has stayed in bed for six days straight watching The Wonder Years on Netflix. There is still rose left on the shelves at the Trader Joes.

And yet, nothing is really happening right now for so many of us.

When our parents call for a check-in we have to say, “Good! Working on a bunch of new ideas,” or, “Okay… Have a few things I’m developing,” or, “This is actually a really quiet time for writers, so, yeah.”

We all know that’s the game. There are constant hills and valleys on the way to some sort of plateau; a plateau being we get paid money for something that we wrote. Wouldn’t that be the summit? you probably just thought. Hahahaha. No.

But the point of this post isn’t to dwell on what isn’t happening; it’s to find a way to make something else happen, to push some dirt around in the valley until we’ve make ourselves a little hill.

I’m going to be honest in a way that makes me uncomfortable because it feels like bragging, but we’re old friends at this point so I think you can deal: I don’t really do ruts. I have really bad days where I sulk a lot and then lie in bed with the covers pulled up over my face (a move R calls “going turtle”) while watching endless re-runs of Rehab Addict on HGTV. Sometimes I go through phases where I don’t get a lot of writing done because it’s just not coming out of my brain. I have plowed my way through the, “how’s the writing going?” question many times because I don’t have anything good to say. But every time that happens I do this thing that I didn’t know was a thing until I just finished the first season of Silicon Valley (which you should watch immediately if you haven’t already). I pivot.

I take who I am and what I think I’m good at, and force myself to go find something else to do. 

I take one of the things that is working in my life and I find a way to do it more. I change the way I structure my day. I change the people I’ve been seeing a lot of. I sleep more or sleep less. I work out. I start a new TV show. I take a week off from blogging if I have no ideas to blog about and use that time to read a book or two instead. A lot of the time – like right now – I go big and finally start that podcast I’ve been meaning to start for five years (coming August 2014!). Other times I force myself to do things that scare me like e-mail a writer idol of mine to see if she’d be interested in getting together for lunch. Yes, I keep pushing myself to do the work that needs to be done (Rachel I swear I’m writing the book proposal), but if that’s not going well on account of the rut then I have to pull myself out to re-charge with another creative outlet until that mojo is back.

My rut busters (just came up with that!) are almost always writing based because that’s what I love most, but I know people who’ve started a new sport, picked up an instrument or started volunteering as a way to take themselves out of their daily, not-so-great routine and shove themselves into a new circle.

Bottom line – I think of a rut as the one part of my brain – the negative, frustrated, bully side – beating the crap out of the other part – the focused, confident, go-get-’em side. If I can just distract the bully side by shoving things that the go-get-’em side loves in front of it then the fight is over. I know that doesn’t entirely make sense because if one side is distracted than the other side can sucker punch it, but I’ve never been in a fight and generally close my eyes when they happen on TV, so in my mind if the good guy gets distracted by an ice cream truck than the bad guy just walks away.

Does the pivot always work? Depends on the goal. Does it instantly make me focused and ready to finish the book proposal in one week flat? Sometimes yes, mostly no. But that’s not the point. The point is to just keep swimming, I hope.