Reaching For Infinity Between The Pages

There are going to be days (or weeks, or months) where you sit down to write and feel... disconnected. From your voice, from your characters, from your ideas. Like the person who used to write your stories just packed up and left.

They didn't. They're just tired. Here's how to keep writing anyway:

Lower the bar (Until it's on the floor) You are not here to write something brilliant. You are here to write something. A paragraph. A sentence. A single line of dialogue. Movement matters way more than quality.

Write around the story Don't force it. If you can't write the scene, try: ⋆ A character ramble / journal entry ⋆ A conversation that won't be included in the final draft ⋆ A list of things the character would never admit out loud ⋆ A messy summary of what should happen Engage with the story from a different angle.

Borrow a voice until yours comes back No, not with AI. Read something that feels close to what you want to write, or watch a scene that captures the tone, then write immediately after. Not to copy, to reignite your instincts.

Write the emotion, not the plot. What is your character feeling in this moment? What are they afraid of? What do they want but won't say? What's being kept from them? The emotion leads, the plot catches up later.

Stop trying to "feel like a writer" first. You don't write when you feel like a writer. You feel like a writer because you write.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 lbs boiled yellow potatoes

1 cup local milk

1/2 cup local 35% Cream

6 whole eggs

1 cup diced ham

1 cup sliced cherry tomatoes

2 cups cleaned spinach

1 scotch bonnet pepper or jalapeno sliced thinly (optional)

1 cup grated local mozzarella

3 tablespoons salt - 2 for the water to cook the potatoes and 1 for the egg and milk mixture

1 tablespoon black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped chives

2 tablespoons local salted butter

Method

Add your potatoes to a large stock pot and fill with cold water. Add salt and allow to boil until fork tender. Once ready strain water and allow to cool for a few minutes

Preheat oven to 350°F

Grease a large cake tin thoroughly with butter and add your now cooled boiled potatoes.

Using the back of a cup gently press down on the potatoes to form your crust.

Add spinach, diced ham, and tomatoes

In a large bowl whisk together milk, cream and eggs. Then carefully pour this into your shell.

Top this with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, hot pepper slices, and mozzarella.

Place this on top of a baking sheet and bake on the middle rack for 45-50 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

jason todd. your boyfriend. your bane. your bruised-up boy who throws hands like they’re confetti and consequences don’t exist. he’s sitting on the edge of your tub right now, blood still wet on his knuckles, and you’re kneeling in front of him with a cotton pad and a whole lot of opinions.

“you could’ve killed him,” you mutter, dabbing at the split in his lip like it didn’t just cost you your last cotton pad and a bit of your will to live. jason shrugs. casually. too casually. like he didn’t almost commit a felony thirty minutes ago outside a bar over some guy saying something about your legs.

“he had it coming.”

“you can’t just go around beating the hell out of every guy who says something gross,” you say, but your thumb brushes over the edge of a bruise blooming down his jaw like a flower that got punched into existence. green and purple and angry, but it doesn't make him look worse. if anything, it makes him more jason. more yours. more kissable, which is deeply, profoundly annoying.

you want to kiss him. god, you do. but you’re supposed to be talking him down from the moral ledge or whatever. you're supposed to be Reasonable Girlfriend, not Thirsty Enabler Who Thinks Violence Is Hot (even though, like. it is. a little.)

“you didn’t have to hit him that hard,” you say, quieter now. like if you say it gently he’ll listen better. like if you sound soft, he won’t smirk like that.

he smirks like that.

“yeah, i did.” his voice is dead serious. eyes all sharp and locked on yours. “disrespecting you’s a valid reason to get his teeth knocked out.”

you glare. because someone has to. because someone in this bathroom has to be sane. but it’s hard. it’s really hard. especially when he’s sitting there looking all stupidly beautiful with blood on his mouth like a red-lipped warning sign, and now he’s not even pretending to listen because he’s too busy watching your mouth.

“idiot,” you whisper, mostly to yourself. and definitely not with affection. absolutely not. except, okay, fine—maybe a little with affection. and you don’t resist, not even a little, when he hooks two fingers into your belt loop and tugs you forward, pulling you in until you’re standing between his legs and he’s looking up at you like you hung the moon and maybe, somehow, set it on fire too.

he’s still got that half-smirk. that half-desperate, half-charming, fully annoying little tilt to his mouth. like he knows you’re gonna cave. like he’s already won.

"You're not exactly helping me feel guilty, y'know." he says, voice low, all gravel and temptation and smug little shit.

you roll your eyes. you pretend you’re annoyed. you don’t kiss him. not yet. not until you drop the cotton pad in the sink and sigh like he’s the biggest inconvenience in your life and also maybe the love of it.

“i told you not to wait up,” jason says, voice low, rough, ruined from yelling or running or both. he's peeling his jacket off one shoulder, the kevlar sticking where the blood’s dried tacky and brown, and you’re already crossing the room to him with a frown and a half-empty bottle of peroxide.

“yeah?” you say. “and i told you not to get stabbed again. guess we’re both bad at listening.”

his mouth twitches like he wants to laugh. doesn’t. his whole body sways like the adrenaline’s leaking out of him, and now there’s nothing holding him upright but pure spite and habit.

you grab his wrist. gently. “sit down.”

“doll, i’m fine—”

“sit. down.”

he does. mostly because you said it like that. partly because he’s tired. mostly because you’re touching him again.

the cut on his side is shallow but ugly, right under the ribs, still leaking a little. the sight of it makes your stomach twist, like maybe if you’d called him one minute earlier, if you’d kept him talking, if you’d just begged a little harder— whatever. you’re not crying. you’re not.

“what happened?” you ask, even though you probably don’t want to know.

he shrugs, flinches. “guy had a knife. i had bad reflexes.”

“your reflexes are never bad.”

he looks at you. for a second. and then away.

you clean the cut. you don’t say anything about how he hisses through his teeth. or how his jaw tightens like he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t feel you, doesn’t care that you’re here, doesn’t want to grab you by the wrist and kiss you so hard he forgets how to breathe.

“you could’ve called for backup,” you say. softly. the gauze sticks a little. you don’t apologize.

“i didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“and you getting hurt is fine?”

“i’m used to it.”

that does something awful to your chest. you press harder than you mean to. he doesn’t say anything. just watches you with those stupid storm-cloud eyes like he’s sorry but also not sorry at all.

“idiot,” you mutter. not looking at him.

“you love it,” he says, smirking with blood on his teeth.

you glare. “you’re literally bleeding out and you still manage to flirt.”

“i’m multitasking.”

you hate him. you love him. you hate that you love him. you love that he’s here, still, bruised and reckless and real and breathing.

you lean in before you can stop yourself. just enough to rest your forehead against his. his skin is hot. he smells like smoke and metal and something that might be yours.

“please don’t die,” you whisper.

he doesn’t say anything.

but his hand finds yours. bruised knuckles and all. squeezes once.