Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Writing Troubles


I just read a terrific post that hit my outlook feed while I was on vacation: "Overcoming Burnout: How to Recover When You're Exhausted From Writing."  In the last eight months, I have written 218,000 words for the Tenet series.  In February and March, I felt like I was slogging along.  I am tired of this project.  Besides a couple of side distractions, I have been working on the project consistently for eight years.  Granted, in the beginning, the going was a crawl forward, but the last couple years I have been running and these last months I have been sprinting.  My poor little writing brain is tired. 

I had hoped the vacation to Europe would help.  The problem with a trip to Europe is the pace of running all over to see everything possible in a short amount of time.  That causes a whole different type of exhaustion.  I will say that I did have a little writing epiphany while in Germany, but I will discuss more of that later.  Upon coming home, I haven't wanted to write about Corrion or anyone from the country of Icordia.

The article resonated with me because yesterday I realized that I couldn't face my big project.  I decided I was going to take April and maybe May off and do something fun.  The fun will be in the form of gardening, housework, playing with a new character, and maybe some painting projects.  The first part of the article talked about committing to recovery from burnout.  I already have.  Boy, I am a genius.

The next suggestion was picking the right amount of time.  For a novel, they say one to two months of rest is a good number.  Now, I am burned out on Icordia, not writing per say.  I hate to not be playing and practicing with words for that long, so I will work on something different.  I started the new little project last night.  I am going to work on my D&D characters back story.  As I thought about it over the day, I had no clue of a story.  I knew Belvora ended up in a prison.  She was of royal birth and due to past circumstances, she was paranoid.  I brainstormed with Jerry when he came home from work.  After thirty minutes, I had some inspiration.  I wrote 1,246 words.  I now have a direction and plan to have a short novel by June to send my editor.  This will set me behind on my publishing date for my last Tenet novel, but I know the rest will make the writing richer.

Okay, I wrote this post last week.  I am still finding it difficult to write.  I have rewritten the opening of Amber Rose about four times.  Gurr.  I need to just back off, but I keep looking at my writing total for this month, pathetic.  I know I can be doing better.  I am so not good at giving myself a break.  I am not sure what I am going to do.  Okay, I do know.  I am going to plod along and sit in the bloody chair until the writing begins to flow again. 

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