Sometimes writing feels like careening blindly down the road to hell.
And it's not like it's a quick trip, nor is it always obvious you are on the Highway to Hell.
Nope, you may actually believe you are on the Candy Land Freeway, but then something happens and suddenly those bright jewel-tone jujube hedges that whip by as you zip along, don't look so tasty. In fact they seem to have melted into black pools of gummy goo, sort of like your thought process. You plod along for a while, stall out a few times as your words become more elusive and harder to pin down. Finally you come to a dead stop when your red licorice expressway decays into a fiery stretch of hot lava.
Your imagination is tapped. The writing has ceased.
As the Soup Nazi would say - No Words for You!
This process is repetitive, which is hellish in its own way and makes you wonder about the sanity of writers. Why bother to continue? Simple answer; we'd feel crazier if we stopped.
Sometimes I return after a brief lull in creative creation, with heady anticipation. My characters eager for further adventures, my plot bubbling, as excitement drips from my fingers onto my key board. Ew. That sounds sort of gross and my drippy fingers may be more the result of a broken air conditioner and wackadoo hormones, but I digress. What I was trying to say is my typing skills are maxed to keep pace with the seemingly endless perfect words that explode from my imagination. Trust me. This happens and it is sublime. (Love that word. It is so sublimely sublime.)
Other times, like right this very instant, my words hide from me, just out of reach. I've been nearly wordless for the entire summer, peeps. Writer's Block to the extreme. But I have a plan. This weekend I am off with my writing group, The Anitas, on our annual retreat to Grindstone Provincial Park at Christina Janz' cottage. It has been the solution to my past writing woes, so I am
How can I be so sure?
There will be zero distractions; no kids, Internet, phone, laundry, wall scrubbing or window washing for me. Stop laughing. There was this one time I washed some windows. My point is I will be hyper-focused, obsessed even, with stalking those verbs, nouns, prepositions, and conjunctions from their cozy hidey-hole in the back corner of my brain. (I can sense they are chilling out right behind the grey matter that controls my constant cravings for chocolate.)
Crap. Now all I can think about is brownies. And Hershey Kisses. Wait, what if there was a Hershey Kiss brownie? Must Google...
Sweet Mama! There is an entire Hershey Kisses site!
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| Hershey Kisses Recipes |
What was I blogging about? Right. Writing distractions.
I do believe I have made my point.
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