The Writer's Womps - Talicha J. Poetry

Talicha J. Poetry

I share poetry, tips for poets & writers, prompts, wins, womps & more!

The Writer's Womps

When you just...can't

Feb 28, 2026

Hi Friends!

I am here to share my latest WOMP with you. As a reminder, a Womp is something that just isn’t going well or as expected. Not a fail. Just…womp womp.

Last year, I introduced my column, SWEET TArTs, which is all about helping poets & teaching artists navigate the business of being an artist. I started it to share resources and my experiences, what did and didn’t work for me as I figured it all out. Because when I was first starting out, it was so hard to find people sharing this information, especially for free.

I was excited about it, and easily wrote out all the articles and scheduled them before I ever released the first one. It felt good. In order to avoid burn out, I decided this would be something I produced once a year. So, after my last post in April of 2025 dropped, I ended “season one” with the goal of returning again in January of 2026.

I thought about it often throughout the rest of 2025. I wanted to keep providing my insight, what tools I used, what strategies worked, etc. I put together an outline of what I’d cover this time around. Things like:

I sat down to write, and just…couldn’t. I felt disconnected from this project. Yes, I wanted to create resources for other writers & teaching artists still! Yet, I didn’t have the energy for it. Everything I wrote felt flimsy or fake. It felt like something I was doing because now I had to, and honestly? It read that way too.

I did share two columns: Planning Your Teaching Year Without Burnout and Finding YOUR System. Those felt okay. But when I sat down to do more, I felt frustrated, disconnected, and like I was trying to shove myself into something that didn’t fit anymore.

I asked the tarot cards: What is causing the disconnect for me with this column? I pulled the Six of Cups. Which made me wonder is the disconnect from my inner child resisting because there’s pressure around it now, when it previously brought joy? When I wrote the first batch, no one knew about it. I did them quietly over a month, and then released them. I didn’t HAVE to write them, and so it came freely and I was happy.

I asked a follow-up: Should I try to overcome this disconnect at all, or is this something to return to later? And I pulled the Five of Cups, which is giving me mourning energy. Something has been lost (the spark for the column perhaps). But it’s not necessarily giving me “quit” energy either. More like, feel the feelings that this has changed for you. Take the time to let it become what it needs to instead of trying to make it mirror what it was.

As I sit with that, it feels right. Output, productivity, results, results, results took the place of help, resource, share. And that drove out the creative energy needed to do this task. So what do you do when you just can’t? You pause. You sit with it. You ask questions. Am I disappointed that SWEET TArTs is back in hiatus mode? Yes. Deeply. However, I know anything I attempt right now won’t be genuine. It won’t be helpful.

In the meantime, I invite folks to peruse old articles. And instead of announcing when it will return (which I did for season 2 and immediately the disconnect occurred) I will wait for the spark to come back, for the articles to feel ready to be written. I’ll write them all without the pressure. Only then will I announce its return.

This is me learning how I work in certain areas. For example, I know The FreeWrite has to go out every week. I don’t have the same disconnect knowing I “have” to produce it. It’s good for me to see that I have more than one process. And I think it says something about my integrity that I don’t want to just push out articles for the sake of pushing them out. SWEET TArTs is something I believe in and never want to toss scraps of information out to get it done.

Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. I hope you are all doing well, checking in with yourselves and your energy, asking questions, and taking the time you need to let a project become what it needs to, when it needs to.