Creativity Doldrums

Oh dear, four months since I last made a blog entry.

I changed jobs at the end of May which has been great, I’m really enjoying the new role but I am busier than ever. Life is flashing before my eyes.

I still had some crap to deal with from the previous role which is yet to be concluded so that has been a frustrating experience, to say the least.

Mental health has been a bit up and down. I was exercising for a little while but then lost the motivation to do it every day and my weight has started creeping back up again. I’ve become lazy and complacent which is hard to deal with, especially on those days when I feel the tidal wave of sadness looming behind me. I feel sad every day but try and occupy my thoughts with other things as best I can. I treated myself to my first tattoo in June and had my next one Saturday just gone.

So, of course, the writing suffered. Horizon Skies was left to gather dust as the editing process dragged on. I think it’s on it’s 5th or 6th draft now and if it hadn’t been for one of my lovely Twitter crowd asking about a beta reader for her own book, I don’t know if I’d have got someone to take another look at mine. I decided to stop where I’d got to and we did a beta swap. I am so glad I did because it’s taken away some of the stress I was feeling  and I’ve been able to turn my attention back to other WIPs that have been languishing in the dark.

I last picked up Sanctuary of Stone in March this year and whilst I’ve looked at it from time to time, I couldn’t work out the story arc. I’m very much a writer who lets the plot unfold as I write. The danger with that is my stories either wither and die or go off on a wild tangent.

The trouble with Sanctuary is that it started out as a story within a very contained environment with just one character. I soon realised, this wouldn’t be enough to sustain a story of novel length so introduced other characters as I worked out the story in my head. As the environment in which these characters occupy is a place they can’t/won’t/don’t leave it became apparent that I would have to conclude the story quite quickly, thus, reducing the length to that of a novella. I don’t want to do that though.

Yesterday, I picked up were I left off and added another 1,000 words to chapter 10 which has now clocked in at approx. 1,700 total. I’d like to add another 500 or so as I always try to aim for a minimum chapter length of 2,000.

Today, I printed off all completed chapters and I then had a light bulb moment, something I’ve not had in a long time. A story arc came to mind and I felt inspired once again. For someone who wants to be a professional writer, the last few months of floating in the creativity doldrums had me worried. Is Horizon Skies the only book I’ll ever write?

Hopefully not, I’ve got so many more stories I want to tell.