NOW AVAILABLE!

NOW AVAILABLE!
A HERO'S SPARK: the final book in the Wicked Women series!

Friday, August 8, 2014

It's not writer's block...it's writer's burn out...

Good evening!

After finishing A Hero's Spark I was super duper completely excited to get to work on my new inspirational mystery series starring Nora Hill.  I was on a roll.  I'd just finished a novel, I built a website and I was ready to break into a new market. And I started writing.  In fact, I started two writing projects at the same time, one the mystery series, the other a work place humor follow up to my Elsie W. books.

That was eight weeks ago.  I even, in June, went to a meeting with the Mad City Romance Writers, a group I hadn't seen in eons, and had a blast at one of their write ins.  It was fun catching up.

And then...

Well, and then nothing.

Here's the thing:  when you're a writer, (and this is true for any writers, not just e-pubs who seem to have to crank out more material because the best way to market is to, as J.A. Konrath says, just keep writing, but for everyone), you need some down time.  After a book is done, it's just good for your health to take some time and breath. Not think about loose ends or plot points, or your B character's middle name.  But when you're an e-pub person, then you're doing all the marketing for a new book as well and launching a book on your own is sort of like giving birth without anyone handing you ice chips.  (The women reading this will get that.)

So, it's been eight weeks since I've looked at either manuscript.  Oh, I've blogged.  I blog every week.  I've updated my Face Book pages, and I've made my website (check it by clicking here) super cute.

But I haven't written a word.

Summer is drawing to a close, and I can't even fathom that.  Where did summer go?  When I was a kid summer lasted for ever, long enough for us to be bored enough to want to go back to school.  But now, summer is just a collection of social stuff we have to do in addition to our regular work/kids/chores/church life that we had going the other nine months of the year.  

I should feel guilty about not writing, but I don't.  It's felt good, sitting in a swing in my front yard sipping ice water and watching people let their dogs pee on the tree in front of my house.  It's been nice spending time with my kids late at night watching weird stuff on Netflix and eating pizza.  It's been peaceful enjoying the Tour de France every night for three weeks with my husband.  I know, skinny European guys on bikes...who knew?

But fall is coming.  Even though my youngest only really has one year left of school, it's a mark of time few can ignore.  School starts, everyone goes back to normal lives and for me that means writing again.  I still hope to have at least one of the projects I started in May be done in December, but if they aren't then what, I'm going to stop writing?  

So friends, sometimes if you can't seem to get the energy to sit down and write, it's not writer's block.  Sometimes it's really writer's burn.  That's when you have to give yourself permission to take some time and breath.  It's okay.  The reading public will still be out there when you come back.

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