I’ve done it. After a good solid run of organizing, typing, editing, storylining and writing I’ve finally hit the wall as far as most things writing-related go. I’m exhausted mentally. I’ve been trying all week to get the third chapter of Fie Eoin to my writing group, and while I read and cross things out and write new things above it and in the margins, I just cannot get it to do what I want it to. I can’t write anything new. I stopped in the middle of the scene with Kaye and Timin and nothing else is coming. Kindra’s silent. Lane’s been silent for weeks (as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t put up Chapter 3 of Lane’s Girl either – what is it with me and Chapter 3’s?). I’ve had a little luck storylining the sequel to the Top Secret Project, but I still have no idea what happens in the middle of the first book. And there are still about 20 pages of Fie Eoin that are in order and just need to be hole-punched and put in the binder.
I don’t even have the energy to punch a hole in 20 pages and stick them in the correct spot in a folder.
Brain, meet Wall.
But guess what? I know how to get out of this. I know how to climb that wall. It’s called The Lady of the Light, and it’s been sitting on my nightstand for weeks, waiting for my creative chutzpah to run out. The language is so beautiful, the scenery so vivid, the characters so deep, that it always inspires me to write. To write better. Work harder. Make my WIP sing as much as the story of Auraine and Marcus. And in the meantime it gives me a world away from my commitments and my stresses, and lets me relax a bit until I can take up that pen and write again.
How do you get over that wall? Is there a familiar story that can always do it for you?