I knew it was a thing. I know it looks different for everyone. For me, I had not known a day when my characters weren’t running around in my head. Some days I just didn’t physically feel like writing, and some days the characters weren’t doing anything worth writing. Even then I had never been far from writing.
Then I had to change my sleep schedule. I went from getting up around 8 to easing into a 5:45 daily start the week before school began. My oldest has to be on the bus at 6:45. Saying that I didn’t adjust well is an understatement. I felt like something had yanked my soul from my body every morning and was forcing me to go through the motions of life with it in a little jar. My temper was short, and I was barely doing the minimum needed to run the household. Everyone was suffering.
I should have mentioned that I am a night owl. I like to stay up until midnight. I only go to bed then because the kids will be up.
Each day I sat down to write, and I found out that I had no view into Soulchaser and Spinechrusher’s lives. The first few days I wrote it off as just being tired, but after 10 days I started panicking. Two weeks later and I was an emotional mess about it.
There was a soul-crushing (get it?) feeling that I would never finish this story and publish it. I felt like a failure.
Does this sound familiar?
I took a step back with the help of my tribe on Twitter and figured out that I’m tired (duh), the plot’s not working, and guilt is eating my soul. it sound alot like a combination of the problems listed in Bryn Donovan’s post.
Operation “Break the Wall”
- a new hobby
- finishing other crafty projects
- get back on a cleaning schedule for the house
- take better care of myself
Each task has their own sub-tasks but as I work on that, I feel myself coming back to the world of Aeterra. every now and then i get a glimpse of Ari in the scene where I last saw her.
Have you ever had writer’s block? How did you cope? Share your secrets.
Great post. Can’t wait to see your progress!