A Case of Writers’ Block

I’m back home, sitting at the Board Game Cafe, trying to figure out what I want to write.

Anything I start will be interrupted in two days when I get my dev edit for Whose Hearts are Mountains back, so I can work on fixing it. On the other hand, I feel weird not writing. Not writing poetry, not writing short stories, not writing novels, not editing. 

I’m afraid that if I take a break, I won’t go back. But I have taken a break over finals week and beyond to Christmas. And inspiration has taken a vacation as well.

If I felt like starting a novel, I could turn the jam-packed short story Hands into a novel, if I could get some insight as to what Warsaw, Poland was like fifteen years ago. Boy, did I paint myself into a corner there. 

My blog counts as writing, though, as I intended it to. Warmups to something bigger for the day. Let’s see what that will be.

I need to remind myself

I didn’t write yesterday, because I was busy with getting set up for the beginning of the school year. The hard part’s done — all online class presence is sorted out and in order with due dates accurate, the syllabus pristine, and all that. 

I’m also in the middle of a miserable summer cold that’s been hanging on, so I’m a bit dopey.

I confess that I haven’t written in a while. A week at least, what with the classes and the queries and the cold and the like … I haven’t written more than a half hour to finish a story. I will try to write today, because writing. Even if I only write a couple paragraphs, I need to write.

I need to remind myself that I’m a writer.

Slump

Oh, I really need to get out of this slump!

It’s like I’ve forgotten I’m a writer, and all I want to do is nap all day. That sounds like depression to me, but I don’t feel depressed. Just tired, and relaxed, and totally meh.

This, I remind myself, is not who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I want to get a novel published, and maybe some short stories. I have two short stories and a novel (still Prodigies at DAW) out there, and a third short-short that should be announced any day now (I doubt I’ve won that one, but maybe I’m a runner-up?) 

I’m wondering if winning the short essay contest at A3 has satisfied my desire to get published. I’m wondering where my drive to go further has gone. I’m wondering if I need a change of scenery, but the cafe is closed today. 

I’ll push myself to write today, but maybe a bit later. 

Some Days It’s Hard

It’s Sunday morning here in Maryville, on a dark morning following a torrential thunderstorm, with more rain on the way. I’m listening to classical music and drinking entirely too much coffee, followed by a good dose of King’s Oolong Tea 913, which I received from a friend of mine who’s currently back in China. No need to go out; just a long amount of time to do something.

Or nothing. Right now, I want to do nothing.

I took a break from writing yesterday, mostly because I didn’t feel well, but in part because my projects are as follows:

1. Gaia’s Hands, which is frustrating me because I can’t get a handle for improving it (this vastly rewritten and rewritten story)
2. A short story about one of the characters in Prodigies, which starts with a whole family dying in a bombing and gets more depressing from there.

Not much to grab onto, is there? 

My worry if I take another break is that I will quit writing, because, frankly, it’s easier not to write. Part of the reason I write this blog is to force myself to be productive, to take the hard path, the path I really want to see myself walk down. 

So we’ll see what I want to write today.

Thanks for listening!

I am not inspired

So, I’m done editing Whose Hearts are Mountains, and I’m still at Mozingo on my writing retreat. But I don’t feel like writing. What am I to do?

Here’s my problem — I don’t have any inspiration for a new book. I haven’t since I finished Whose Hearts are Mountains (writing, not editing). This is part of the reason I’ve been editing the back catalog for eventual developmental edits. 

I have an outline for another novel, but my brain feels like a brick right now. I wrote a sentence, a first sentence, and it dropped like lead, inert and boring.  I don’t feel that energy of attraction to anything I’ve writing. 

I think a good amount of this is how hard I’ve been trying to get an agent and how utterly fruitless my efforts have been. I’m discouraged, and it’s hard getting motivated to write when there’s a backlog of unread novels.

Wish me inspiration. Wish me luck. Wish me good spirits. Wish me love.