Ready to Write Again

I usually take a “break” from writing after finishing a big project. I’m currently in my break phase from the completion of the second draft of my young adult novel, which I finished about a month ago. When I told a man in my writers group about my break, he said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you’ll last a week. Then you’ll start to get twitchy.”

I lasted a month. But now, I’m ready to go again. Unfortunately, I didn’t yet feel ready on May first, so I missed the boat on another writing challenge to write “a story a day” during the month of May. I know it’s never too late to write, and May really isn’t that far gone. But the completist/finisher in me really balks at the idea of doing a writing challenge if I can’t do it absolutely right. Not a good way to think, as it keeps me from writing . . . and the most important thing a writer needs to do is, well, write.

Still, I have begun devoting the first half hour of my day to writing again, which is making it easier to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes I use the time to slowly work my way through my stacks of The Writer magazine (my “finisher” tendency compels me to read each and every article, even the ones that don’t seem relevant to my writing.) Sometimes I journal. I’m toying with the idea of finally cracking out and doing the exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I’m going to start doing concept albums again (mix CDs I create based around a common theme, with a story to connect all the songs.) Maybe I’ll even start a project I’ve been fantasizing about for a while: a picto-journal. I’ve been collecting pictures that catch my eye since November, and would like to paste them each into a page in a blank journal and use them for writing prompts. So, I’ve got a lot of creativity waiting to be utilized again. And if I’m really on top of things, I’ll blog here about where I ultimately allow it to go.