All About the Writing

A Day Off from Writing

I tried to take a day off from writing recently. I needed a chance to retreat from all the things bedeviling me in other areas of life. I mean, one day off wasn't too much to ask, was it? I'd definitely earned it with all the work I'd done, not to mention plotting and analyzing and multiple blog posts.

It was a great plan. It just didn't work.

I was relaxing in the bathtub, thinking how brilliant it was to escape from all the mental activities. However, my brain kept tapping me, saying, "You know, if your heroine heard this, she would realize that. And she needs to know that, in order to grow before the HEA."

I kinda waved my hand, sloshing water everywhere as I answered, "Yeah, yeah, contact me later. I'm not working today."

But maybe water works on ideas for the WIP like it does on those movie gremlins – you don't want to get them wet, because then they multiply. Pretty soon I was mentally editing this scene, and adding a line or two to that scene, then right after that an idea for a blog post appeared and. . .

There went my planned day off.

Not that I'm complaining. It just made me realize how integral writing is to my life. 

Writing doesn't go away. It may disappear for a while, but it always comes back stronger, kind of like the tide going out and then returning as a tsunami. There are other days when the urge to write is like a sneeze that keeps building up but never actually turns into a sneeze, as if the words are stuck inside. 

If writing is in your blood, you will find a way around all the obstacles, especially the ones YOU erect, consciously or unconsciously. 

If it really matters, you'll write, whether the conditions are just perfect the way you like, or whether you have to ask the restaurant hostess for a box of crayons when an idea hits. 

The words will come forth, and in their own perverse way, they're likely to choose the moment when you're drifting off to sleep after an exhausting day, or when you're stuck in a grocery line without a scrap of paper (until you get your receipt).

It's a sort of madness, writing is. If you're a writer, though, you learn to embrace it, and you welcome all the crazy, wacky insanity it creates.

Even when it's your day off.

Summer Lovin' on Heroes and Heartbreakers Blog

The Heroes and Heartbreakers blog is featuring books by its bloggers, and I'm thrilled to be included in today's listing with so many talented writers.

You can see Summer Lovin', including its fabulous cover, here.

The Playground of My Mind

My brain is filled to overflowing right now.

I've mentioned before how my mental "filing system" (definite "air quotes" in use here) is not as organized as it could be. If it were, it would be so much easier to locate all the stuff that has been crammed into the nooks and crannies of already overcrowded brain cells.

To make things even more challenging, I have characters that roam around up there. Some of them tiptoe through the mayhem and try not to gape. But others are a lot more nosy. They have to poke a stick at something that catches their interest, which makes something else topple over, which crashes into yet another pile of ideas. . .

It's a good thing. I think. I'm pretty sure. I mean, that's how crazy notions manage to get their start. Although I do wonder what it would be like if I had a brain that was neat and tidy, with row after row of labeled, organized ideas, and scenes, and heck, whole manuscripts in their proper place.

Actually it might frighten me to see it like that. It wouldn't feel like me. It would definitely seem like I'd been transplanted into someone else's brain. (You can see another story idea forming, can't you?)

I envy non-writers, since I imagine their brains are wide open and spacious, with plenty of room for new stuff to be imported. The best I can do to achieve that status is to keep pouring my stories out, in an attempt to make room for new ones.

Unfortunately, with new stories comes new secondary characters, and they move in with no plan to move back out. And somehow they have friends I didn't know about when I said, "Sure, stay for a few days. There's plenty of room."

Next thing you know I'm running a day care center for stray characters. And all their baggage, and everything they need to go through to stretch and grow and move on to their HEA.

It's a giant playground up there, filled with a multitude of fascinating heroes and heroines. I don't want to be a cranky hall monitor, so they've learned to keep the noise down while I'm sleeping. But as soon as I'm awake, it's fair game. Unless they have other plans of course, which they frequently do, and I'm the last to know about it.

Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. I've grown accustomed to wandering through my brain, shushing one batch of characters, and drawing out another group that is unnecessarily quiet. When I write their stories, it ends up being a veritable scrapbook of where they've been, and where their hopes and dreams led them.

Too soon, before I'm quite ready, they're gone, and it's difficult to get used to the silence they've left behind.

All of a sudden I'm thinking, "You know, if I move that idea over there, and stack this with these others, there would be plenty of room for that new group of characters. . ."