I am gearing up to write again. The first step is to write on the blog. The second step is to stop pouring other fiction into my head so I can pour out the fiction inside my head. This means no reading novels. No listening to Audible. No pod casts. No binge watching TV, Hulu or netflix. I am doing all of those things like a crack addict that’s stumbled into a cache of product. I am doing all of those things instead of writing my own story. I have a solid story in my head, a character with a great story arc just loitering about inside my head waiting to be released. And yet….I watch Netflix Bloodlines and Daredevil and BBC’s Luther….all three seasons of Idris Elba. Yum!
DO I need to tell you that I am gearing up to write again? No. I need to tell myself. I have placed myself on record. I WILL write again. More. I have already started this story. I have written 13 chapters. I’ve read them aloud to a group with pens and critical thoughts. I have gotten feedback. I know what works. I know what sucks.
It is time to get serious and just do this! So. I will try to open the door to the writing portion of my brain while trying to work my real job and run my real business and juggle my real life responsibilities. Once I crack this door open, sometimes a flood comes crashing through. That is how the first book happened. A deluge. A torrential downpour of writing. It might be the only way I know how to write. So, this week, I will recreate my old pattern. Work the day job – the real job that is vital and important and upon which my life (and the health of my patients) relies. Do that work well and with true focus. Then leave work, go and exercise for an hour. Once I get home I need to eat, make coffee and sit down to write. And write until the scene of the day, the scene that forms slowly throughout the day as I work and exercise, and get it out of my head and onto paper (or the computer screen). It’s the rhythm that works for me. I compress my writing into this wedge of time at the end of the day and the pressure forces me to be productive. No wallowing. No writers’ block.
It’s time to write.