lying fallow

I've had a spell, writing wise, of lying fallow, rare for me and very uncomfortable. I'm much happier when working wildly on a book, racing to get down all the paragraphs that seem to collect inside my head.

Trying to view this a necessary part of the process - allowing emptiness and space, specifically for the work in progress which for the first time, I have let sit for months in first draft.

I got back to it this week, readied for it, and finally last night leapt back into the pages. It's exciting to see the benefits of letting it be, and fascinating that in the midst of the empty space (weeks back) there was a revelation that in some ways solves many of the problems of the first draft. It answers a lot of questions posed by three writing group members who read a fair portion of the ms.

I didn't plan it this way, but it occurred to me this morning that when I looked out the window, the fields seem to be washed lightly in green. The bulbs are up, beginning to bud and blossom. Somehow my timing has gotten in sync with nature and the season, the full-tilt buzz of delight that begins underground and works its way outward.

This is by far my favorite part of the writing process - when it starts to hum and bursts out wild and untamed. The deep revision is a close second, and comes just in time to restore order to the wonderful chaos.