Before the kids got out of school in June I had started to feel as though I was hitting my head against a brick wall when trying to write. So I decided to take a break - to read more and to relax. To spend more time focused on the kids while they were home, and on Heli Dad, and on myself. It was a good summer and exactly what I needed.
When I started sitting back down at the computer on a regular basis in August, I still wasn't ready to wade back in to the projects I'd hit pause on in June. But I started writing.
I finished a fan fiction story I'd begun years ago - to the delight of many long time readers who'd still been waiting to find out how it would end. And when that was done, I still had more to write so I started another, one that had been sort of simmering on a back burner in my head for a couple years, just waiting.
I needed the break.
The full stop.
The mental rejuvenation.
I've needed this chunk of time where I've essentially just been writing for fun again. This grace period where I haven't had to worry about all the gritty details. I don't have to build the world, or create the characters... I can just let the words flow while I tell a story.
The crazy thing is that before the break, I was struggling to write 500 words a week.
In the last month I've written roughly 45,000.
And there are more. I don't sit down at the computer and wonder what to write. I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. I know where the story goes, how it ends, and how to get there.
As the words simply spill out of me for this fan fiction story, I find my mind is also working on the ideas and plot points, and all the little details that I'd been struggling with so much in the Spring. I jot down these random bits and pieces every day. I'm connecting dots that I hadn't even realized I needed to connect. In my mind, I'm finally getting all the various puzzle pieces of the story (my original works story) sorted out. I'm figuring out where and how all the disparate details fit together to create the big picture.
Somehow I simply know that when I switch back the words I need will be there. While it may not be as free flowing as this fan fiction writing has been, I won't be beating my head against that brick wall anymore either.
Writers -- have you come up against this before?
To clarify, I'm not talking about writers block. Not really. I could still write. The thing was, I was forcing it, hard, and you could tell.
So what did you do? What do yo do?
Did you keep attack the brick wall, pumping out words that sort of, but not really fit with what you wanted to say? Do you redirect? Take a break?
What do you do when your story is dammed up inside your head and you just can't find the right key to open the floodgates?
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