Returning to Writing After a Long Absence–Saddlesore

For someone who looks, walks and talks like a writer, I’ve been doing a pitifully small amount of writing lately.

Writing is kind of like chasing a running horse on foot—the further away it gets, the further away it is. The longer you go without writing, the harder it is to catch up and get yourself back into the habit.

After long hours and near-nervous-breakdown inducing stress levels at my day job in December, I gave myself a few weeks in January to relax, de-stress, and let my whim take me where it would. Naturally, since I love to write and in the last three or four years, motivating myself to do so has NOT been an issue, I thought that after a few days of puttering, I would sit down and canter through my Book II revision. Alas.

Not only did I do next to no writing, when my working/writing schedule started up again, I still didn’t feel like writing at all.

The sad fact is, there are many times in life as well as writing, when you won’t FEEL like doing something, but when you FORCE yourself to do it, you’ll find you actually enjoy doing it and wish you had been doing it all along.

This isn’t a new epiphany for me, but I’ll admit I was rusty. I haven’t NOT felt like writing in so long that when I didn’t, I seriously thought something was wrong with me.

“Well, I guess this is the end,” I thought. “I wonder what I’ll do instead? Maybe I would be happy as a janitor. Or I could work the front desk in a hotel. That might be interesting.”

I had forgotten that for years, I engaged in a kind of tug of war between FEEL and FORCE. I think most novice writers do. What’s behind it? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Sheer laziness? It’s probably a lot of different things for different people, but the solution is always the same.

I had to tie myself to the saddle, slap the horse’s rump, and send myself galloping back to QaiMaj.

While it was terrifying at first, the good (and somewhat perplexing considering my reluctance) news is that once I was going, I was gone. I got into the story quicker than a sharpshooter’s bullet gets into her target. My mind was awake with possibilities and many of the issues in the draft that I had been worried about during the last read-through practically resolved themselves. And best of all, I was having fun.

I prefer my western metaphor to the oft-used Butt In Chair, Hands on Keys because returning to writing left me literally saddlesore. While my day job presents its own ergonomic challenges, I’m usually standing, not sitting. I had forgotten that when I’m sitting and writing for four or more hours at a time, in order to not do permanent damage to my body, I have to take frequent stretch breaks and do yoga every day.

Otherwise after a long day on the trail, I feel more like Granny Oakley than Annie Oakley.