Saturday, June 27, 2015

Finding my writing mojo


It’s hard to believe that five months have slipped by since we last put up a post. So much has happened over the past year – in particular, new, time-consuming jobs for both me and Nik – that blogging and writing and even reading, at times, have slowed tremendously. (As have housework and hobbies and all sorts of other things I used to have time for…).

But I want this. I do. I want to finish the books I’ve started as well as the ones still in my head.

I’m taking advantage of the extra time afforded by the summer break from school (no more God-awful early mornings and endless evenings of homework, at least for the next 10 weeks) to get back my writing mojo. It’s not easy. The words are stiff, the characters blather, and I can’t see where it’s going. But I’m pushing through, planning out writing sessions during my commute so when I get to the computer I know exactly what I’ll work on. Kind of a brute force approach, and progress is slow. But it’s there.

I recently started playing the piano again after a 25-year hiatus (amazing how time flies!) and the experience is very similar. At first, stiff fingers, poor pacing, and a complete absence of anything even close to resembling musicality. But the more I play, the easier it becomes and the better it sounds. I have very high hopes that my writing will follow suit.

I have four tween/teen novels underway, one racy adult story, two cookbooks, and a notebook full of story ideas. So no shortage of options and no excuses for writers’ block. I’m planning an August writing trip while my kids are away to complete a first draft of one of the kids’ books and to get a good start on cookbook #3.

But enough about me. We want to hear from you. If you’ve lost your writing mojo at some point, how did you get it back? Plow through it and hope for the best? Writing exercises? Elves and fairy dust? Winn-Dixie? Please share!



1 comment:

  1. Teaching zapped my writing mojo and then I was always too tired to get it back in the summer because that was the only time for an endless list of other chores. It's hard to find the right balance that much is sure, and I hope you get your mojo back.

    ReplyDelete