to write about not writing

a friend told me not long ago that someone who writes (me, in this case) should do it even when one lacks the inspiration, the state of mind to do it. how? well, she said that if one cannot write new stuff, then one should rewrite what was already written. the reason was the practice, the discipline. the writing process, she argues, must be disciplined, and one who writes must be able to do so even in the most uninspired moments. what is important is never to stop.

i see the point, but the fact is, sometimes the state of mind doesn't allow me to do a decent rewriting. and i suck at it. i really do. i mean, i can do it, all right, but not immediately. if i wrote a chapter of a novel yesterday, i can't go on and rewrite it today just because today i can't produce a brand new chapter. the main problem about rewriting is that everything we wrote is still red hot in our minds, and it gets hard to detect errors and lacks of coherence. it takes some time and some distance from what we wrote to be able to do a good revamp of whatever we have written.

the best thing to do (at least for me) when the inspiration lies six feet under and the mind is clouded is to write precisely about that - the lack of inspiration and the blank state of mind.