Saturday, April 07, 2007

getting back into the book

I've been distracted the past few days and have fallen out of the spell of revision. This is not writer's block. It's more like writer's inertia. I can see what I need to do, and what I *want* to do - but I'm having trouble taking the first step.

There are cures for this. Getting out of the regular writing environment is one. I need to pack up my laptop and leave this garret!

Which was my plan, but the wind is roaring outside and has me feeling both inert and restless, if you can imagine such a thing.

However, I promised myself I would do this today - find my path back onto the conveyor belt of this book, which was going so smoothly earlier in the week, and which is, in fact, STILL going smoothly. I'm just not on it.

You know the feeling of standing at the foot of an escalator, choosing the right moment to step on? And how pausing too long brings you to a complete halt? That's exactly what this is.

I will report back later, hopefully from a distant location, which will mean I am back in motion.

Wish me luck.



Here's where I ended up, tucked into a back nook at our wonderful local cafe/coffeehouse. I'm now up to page 251/322 in my revision, back in motion and with more to go before I leave here.

So. It worked!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that looks too nice to be a public place! Great to hear the creative flow is rushing again. :)

Joni said...

Whoo Hoo! Good for you! It's nice when a plan works out.

shara said...

I'd leave the shed to go sit there and have coffee, it looks so inviting. Glad your revisions are going well.

billie said...

Jason, I should have taken more photos - the entire place is wonderful, very artsy and funky and very appealing.

Thanks, Joni!

Shara, if the shed were closer by, I might have come THERE yesterday. :)

shara said...

Billie, it will be a perfect place to sit and write this summer, once I get a window put in and the floor sorted out, I have just the table and chair I need, ready to move in. It'll be my garret and coffee shop/teahouse and cabin all rolled into one. If I could, I'd pick up my path with one hand and yours with the other, like two ends of a piece of string, pull the ends together and we'd just hop back and forth, all the distance between momentarily forgotten. Like Mrs. Whosit? Whatsit? explaining time travel in a Wrinkle in Time, I think, didn't she use the string analogy? I'll have to re-read those books, I loved them, I knew I was Meg in another life, or this one.

billie said...

Shara, wouldn't that be marvelous, to be able to slip back and forth that way?

I am sure your shed will be a perfect place for creative journeying.

Funny, I once had an office down the hall from a writer who has become a good friend, and I used to say I could feel her writing energy wafting down to mine.

We'll have to create our own energy path from shed to garret and back again - it was one of my favorite things about that office!

Anonymous said...

I too love the wrinkle in time trilogy (now a quartet)!

Yes, the GSC is a wonderfully cool place to hang out and (I imagine) to write in. . .