by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
True confessions time. Last weekend I put my book in a box. Literally. I took it off my desk and put it in a plastic container with a lid and stuck it in a corner. We both need a time out. Now some writers might think I am avoiding hard work or procrastinating or all of the above. Probably.
However, when I am avoiding my entire home office because the manuscript is in there, it’s telling me something else is going on with the book. Like, maybe I don’t want to write this book at all. Forget the fact it is a second edition, originally published in 2006, it’s almost done – except for all the final grunt work.
A big part of this is the “been there, done that” where’s the new hot spicy fun stuff part. But a bigger part I am coming to realize is after specializing in my military niche for 16 years, its wearing a little thin on me or I am too thin in the creativity department right now. Think both apply.
Rather than slog through the grunt work and produce a second edition book with mediocre updates, I decided to give both of us recess time. Immediately felt better. Yes, the siren call of my other fiction and non-fiction manuscripts are luring me, but right now my right brain wants to do one thing; knit.
So that is what I am going to do for a while, be a creative knitter, write my blog posts, take pictures and see what happens. Maybe my muse needs a sabbatical summer to get itself in gear again. Or maybe there are bigger shifts afoot here in writer brain land. It’s been a bumpy eight months for me for various reasons and I think all the parts of my brain want a summer sojourn.
Warm summer evenings spent swinging in the lawn swing and knitting up a storm may be just what my muse needs to refresh and reinvigorate itself. Or maybe it is making grand plans I have no inkling about. One never knows.
Have you ever put your work in a box or drawer for a time and then gotten back to it? Was it fermenting or decomposing or growing in there? My quirky mind would like to know!
Uh, Iditarod Nights sat in a box for 12 years before I finished it. I’m feeling like you, have the nearly finished next book on my desk getting shoved from one side to the other. Am thinking I need to give myself a creative break. Except Grace is pestering me… Happy knitting!
I have 12 more years to keep it in the box. Go box! Thanks Cindy.
I do this all the time! Whenever I finish a draft (or just feel like I can’t write another word) everything relating to the novel goes in a giant shoebox and shoved under my bed! It makes me feel better to get it all locked away and I can think about other things, then come back to it once I have rejuvenated my writing spirit.
Enjoy your other creative endeavors!
Take care,
Emily
Emily,
Thanks so much for the encouragement. Sometimes the box under the bed is just the right place for creativity to ferment. That’s my hope! Knitting is working……
Kim