I’ve been jotting notes about a 3-month plan. This includes shuffling file folders, story starters within those folders, writing sticky notes about groups of stories that could be serials or novellas or another novel series, eyeing 3 nonfiction projects, and doing a little research and a whole lot of thinking about tiers for Patreon. What I don’t have a lot of are behind-the-scenes tasks. I have 5 of 8 that don’t involve the creation of content. I feel like my list of ideas, those file folders of story starters, are a tease to creativity. My movie screen is blank.
I think while I’m driving to the barn. I think while I’m driving home, while I eat breakfast, in between clients, in the evening when I take a walk around the backyard to check the garden, the humming bird feeder, and put hay in the steamer for Holly. And all the while, my muse is nowhere to be found. I have the space and the time and even the initial ideas for story creation. And yet…
I used to tell myself, “Write despite.” And then I would get frustrated when I couldn’t. Now I find myself with other obstacles to writing, like being exhausted at the end of the “work” day. Headaches are common for me after staring at the screen for hours while meeting with clients. My eating schedule is wonky because, for the past 2+ months, the clients’ schedules haven’t exactly lined up with mine. The prospect of writing fiction, of returning to the joy of creating stories seems just around the corner, just out of my grasp.
I know better than to put off contentment or counting my blessings until things line up just the way I want. I have 2 more days with clients, then a deafening abyss. Hence my 3-month plan 🙂 I think it might take a little while to adjust to less screen time, to shift my schedule, to not think or plan or organize… and maybe that bit of space will tease my muse to reappear.
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