Mini-Hiatus and the Future

Where did my writer go?

I've been a little MIA in the past week. I've had finals (my last one is this afternoon), and both my mom and my husband's parents are coming to town, starting this afternoon, so we've been involved in a cleaning and studying marathon over the past week or so. Unfortunately, this overlapped some with the end of the A-to-Z Challenge.

To all of the people who have posted recently and haven't heard from me on your own blogs, please know I'm coming to visit soon.

To all of my new followers from the A-to-Z Challenge, WELCOME, and thank you for seeing something you like here and clicking the Follow button. Again, if you haven't seen me lurking, I will.

Now, for my immediate future. First, I'm taking Friday off. My brain needs some time to recharge and think about blogging again.

On Monday (5/9), I'll be going through the plethora of awards I received just before and during the A-to-Z Challenge.

On Wednesday (5/11), I have an exciting announcement planned. Be sure to stop by.

And that's all I have planned at the moment. The blogging part of my brain I hereby switch off for a couple of days (though I'll happily respond to comments).

How are you feeling after the A-to-Z Challenge?

Writing Over the Holidays

Whew! Getting writing done over the holidays sure is hard, isn't it? I've been at my in-laws now close to two weeks, and have hardly opened my computer, much less Scrivener. Granted, I've been reading like a madwoman because, well, I can. But I haven't been writing.

This morning, my husband and I went and spent a few hours at a coffee shop. He wanted to get out of the house to get some work done, and I tagged along to do my own work. And MAN am I rusty. It's only been two weeks, and the words were NOT flowing. I tried editing my NaNo chapters, and realized I needed a new chapter 2.5. I tried working on a new project, and only wrote about 100 words.

The moral of the story: write every day!

Okay, now, that being said, I can't go back in time and write over the past 14 days. I need to get back into the swing of the writing, find the groove and the muse.

So, I ask you: What do you do to find your groove after a break, be it from the holidays or other reasons? Any tips?

Waiting for the Rain

Last night I sat at my computer with seven word documents open: 2 chapters from draft 7,352; 2 free-writing documents to help with characterization; and 3 "new" chapters that I decided to try and blind-rewrite based on a suggestion from Alan Rinzler's blog (disclaimer: not from Alan Rinzler himself).  Normally this isn't a huge deal.  I don't have a problem hopping between .doc's, though I try to work on one as consistently as possible... or I can't move away from it because the juices are just flowing and maybe it's crap but I can't stop it.  However you'd like to describe it is fine.

But last night?  Not so much.  I stared at the doc entitled "Marcus" for 20 minutes, and then checked my email.  After responding to a message from July 16 and spending 30 minutes correcting a translation from a non-native-English-speaking friend, I decided not to go back to "Marcus" (he's laid back enough that he didn't complain).  I hopped over to "new chap 1-1" and read through what I already had.  I know—sort of—what I have to do next in chap 1, but somehow there were no words.  Skip over to "new chap 1.5-1".  I thought I'd had a decent idea on how to introduce all of my alternative US history, and as I started into it I couldn't help thinking about how lame it was, how it would just come off to the reader as me—not the characters, not even the narrator—trying to fill them in on how this land wasn't exactly the same land made for you and me.  Break.  "new chap 2-1".  Same thing.  "new chap 7"...

So I stopped forcing it.  We watched TV.  Well, I frequently "watch" TV and write at the same time, but I actually closed the computer.  That's pretty rare for me these days.  But there was no new email, no new blog posts, and I'm honestly getting kind of bored with FB at the moment.  So, closed.  Asleep.  To dream...

So this morning?  Well, I try not to get the creative side of my brain firing before I have to spend 4 hours learning about something completely unrelated.  Normally I'm reading other people's blogs and writing my own (ta da!).

The bottom line is, I think the soil's dry.  The plants aren't dead, but they just can't grow any more fruit.  I need a good, hardy rain.  But I'm impatient—a good, strong product of the American media insanity.  I don't like waiting for things.  Oh, and did I mention the perfectionism?...

So, I'm giving myself a prescription:

1) Take a break!  I'm closing word officially until next Friday.  If I have ideas, I have a notebook and I can write by hand.  (I hate writing by hand because I get excited and then I can't read my handwriting later on, which is a lot harder to deal with than typos from flying fingers.)  I should try not to write anything huge for the whole week, and see what happens.

2) Read more!  I'm currently in the middle of Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto—a collection of short stories that are beautiful, but there's no cliff-hanger ending to get me back into it.  I also have I Heart You, You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder and Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto sitting on the shelf from the library, whose covers have yet to be turned.  And, as is visible from yesterday's post, I'm now in the Eat Pray Love book club.

I think this decision was made for me.

3) Clear my mind!  I need to make my way through Clearing the Mind for Creativity by John Kao.  This book had been free from Amazon for the Kindle a few weeks ago, although apparently it's not anymore (but it's only $2.39).  I don't have a Kindle, but there's a free Kindle app for Mac OS X.  I've had Kao's book open for close to a week now, and I don't think I'm past page 3.  So much for clearing the mind.

I'll still be online, reading and blogging, etc., but Word is hereby closed until further notice.

Oh!  I just quit the app, and my stomach flipped.  Maybe it's because I haven't eaten breakfast yet...?

Wish me luck!