When the Well Is Dry: Creative Block, Recovery, and Writing Again

Hi friends,

THE LONG DRY SPELL
It’s been over 3 years since I wrote a song I was happy with. I don’t like to say it out loud. It feels like a failure. I used to sit down anytime and write. During the lockdowns of Covid I learnt to record and produce, released an album, toured it through the stop–start of restrictions. It feels foggy now. When I got home to Australia after the last U.S. dates, I was empty. Post-album, post-tour low isn’t new, but this time it didn’t lift. “I’ve lost my mojo,” I told people.

WHEN THE PAST COMES UP FOR AIR
I slid into abuse flashbacks. Men who “used” me as a child replayed on a loop. I went back to weekly therapy and rode the wave. My therapist said it was natural—memories surface around milestones. Complex trauma has its own calendar. I was turning 60. I felt like I was treading water.

TRYING TO RESTART
The following year I booked a short U.S. run, sure live shows would wake something. On the morning of show two I felt off. I hadn’t been sick for eight years—didn’t even get Covid. By the venue I knew: I was getting sick. My voice turned raspy. I cancelled. I lay in a friend’s bed in LA until my Austin flight. Cancelled there, too. I coughed and croaked my way to NYC. I was sick the whole time. The day I flew home, I got Covid for the first time.

SETBACK STACKING
I coughed for three months. September came with shows on the calendar. My voice was rubbish but I tried to push through. A week out, I broke my wrist. Surgery. Six weeks in a brace. Rehab. My voice still wasn’t right. I started vocal rehab. Canberra ENT wait was five months; I went to Sydney. Diagnosis: vocal nodules and severe reflux—the legacy of all that coughing.

A QUIET NEW YEAR
Christmas came and went. 2025 arrived quietly. I kept doing vocal rehab. I booked a second wrist surgery; the hardware was scraping a tendon.

THE DOG, THE ROAD, THE FALL
The day before surgery I walked my dogs. A loose dog came out of nowhere and latched onto one of mine. I kicked to make it release. My dog howled. Next thing I was on the road and my leg wouldn’t bend or straighten. No phone. Couldn’t stand. Ambulance. Hospital. Five days. Surgery. Home. Long, slow recovery. I’m still in it.

WHAT HEALED AND WHAT CHANGED
The nodules are healed. I started a diploma of counselling while I looked at my life from a hospital bed and a couch. Different kind of study. Different kind of stamina.

STARTING AGAIN, BADLY (WHICH COUNTS)
I started writing three weeks ago. It’s late August. I’ve written three very bad songs. I’m writing.

WHAT THIS SEASON TAUGHT ME
“Creative block” sounds tidy. This wasn’t tidy. It was a season that stacked—grief, health, money, logistics, fear—and pressed down on the one thing that usually saves me: the work.

• Dry doesn’t mean done. A well can be empty and still be a well.
  
  

• Shame loves silence. Saying “I can’t write” out loud took the teeth out of it.
  
  

• The body keeps score—and time. Healing is dull and slow and then one day something rings: a note, a chord shape, a quiet mind.
  
  

WHAT FAITH LOOKS LIKE NOW
Not grand declarations. Just showing up when I don’t want to. Letting a bad song be bad and saving it anyway. Caring for the instrument I live in—voice, wrist, leg—because art needs a body.

IF YOUR WELL IS DRY
I won’t sell you magic. Keep the thread in your hand. Keep one small promise you can actually keep. Let life refill the well while you live it—good talks, bus windows, a line from a book, the neighbor's laugh. Save the scraps. You’ll need them when the water returns.

I’m a singer and a teacher, and I’m also a person who couldn’t make anything for a long time. Today I can. It’s not good yet. It doesn’t have to be. I’m writing.

Thanks for reading. If you want a steady hand while you find a working voice that fits real life—and doesn’t leave you wrecked by day’s end—I invite you to book a short call or a first lesson: https://lisarichardsmusic.com/private-voice-lessons

— Lisa