I’ve heard said that, for some people, writing is easy. I do not think writing is easy.

Perhaps it gets easier with time and routine, but turning ideas into words and putting them on the page so other people can understand them—in familiar yet totally original ways—is not easy. William Faulkner (probably) said, “I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, inspiration comes to me at 9 am every morning.”

I cannot find my 9 am. I am trying to create an inspirational routine—writing before the sun and after yoga or before yoga but after coffee or, as today, after the sun and instead of yoga.

It’s almost 9 pm. The red, green, and blue aurora glances off the glass blocks of my window, but it can’t come through. Nothing is coming through.

In today’s Advent workshop, Caroline Myss said heaven doesn’t waste words. When we pray and hear silence it’s because we have already been told what to do—we have an answer and God’s not talking about it again. She also said we have to ask for inspiration.

Did I ask? I hear only silence and the steady tick of a clock that announces seconds but will not give me the time.