It's been months since I have put pen to paper to write something I WANTED to.
For the past six months – no, maybe longer – I've furiously types blog posts for clients, launched Market My Novel, wrote a minibook for a client on social media, tried to wrap up the Market My Novel book (won't even go there right now), posted interviews and guest blogs at Book Addict, rounded up new contributors for Pop Syndicate, wrote book, TV and DVD reviews, and took care of four beautiful kittens (all females) a stray Mama was so kind to drop on my already cat-ladden doorstep.
Whew!
By the end of my days, I could not even THINK about looking at the computer. And since my thoughts race when I write, I usually to need to type them out. (Pen and paper went out with my passion for journalism.)
Of course, my idea juice was seriously lacking like salt in an over-zealous runner. I had zero creative ideas for my fiction and could not even think about picking up Deceived again (As you can see from the unfinished novel blog).
After a few contracts fizzled, my workload changed dramatically and I found I had a lot more time than before. Trying to get myself organized to write, though, wasn't easy.
Getting Started
Over the past few weeks, I've thought about writing – but haven't done much with it. When I first went to the gym in early 2000, I spent three months prepping my brain for it. Each day I thought about the gym until, when I finally got a membership, it was part of me, in my daily thinking – a natural fit to my day.
I'm doing the same thing for fiction writing. I spent $45 on some terrific blank notebooks on the Barnes & Nobel clearance rack and bought some expensive ink pens I really like, but rarely buy, to use with them.
I put one notebook next to the bed and every night, I wrote ideas. The first night was dismal. I wrote one sentence, then doodles and tried to think of something. Eventually, I fell asleep.
Each night, I sat with that notebook and tried to think of ideas – other than the ones screaming inside of my head the past few months – that would jog my creativity. You know, that one idea that gets you so jazzed you cannot write about it fast enough.
Two weeks later, the ideas are flowing like water.
Last night, I hit on a protagonist that I really like – an urban fantasy chick with unimaginable powers.
This is a far cry from the erotica suspense stories I've worked on in the past, but it moves me in a way those stories don't right now.
I won't give up on the serial killer story with a psychic, or my detective mystery series, but I think magick is what I need right now to challenge my brain and take me back to my childhood, when I loved unicorns and demons and trolls and things that went bump every night underneath my bed.
Things Change
Of course, as soon as I started this effort, my schedule changed. I have some more projects that will take up more of my time.
You know what?
I don't care. If it means losing a few hours of sleep, I'm going to WRITE. This has been my passion since I was a child and I'm ashamed to be nearly 35 without more than a short story publication credit under my belt. I always think if I had a husband who supported my career, it would be different, but single girls CAN do it better.
What ways to do you stay organized? How do you get a jump on creativity? What motivates you?
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