A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I kept journals. During my senior year in high school and throughout college, and again for two years in my early 30s after my father died, I filled more than 20 blank books with the minute details of my inner and outer lives.
A few months ago, I found them in a box in my basement. After reading a few entries, I quickly realized I wasn’t ready to revisit my past. I closed the box, put it back on the shelf and returned to my daily routine.
As I continue to navigate the writing life, I treasure the freedom and flexibility that comes with being my own boss and setting my own schedule. And after all of these years, I’m finally doing work I genuinely love.
My previous entry was a plea for help disguised as a blog post. Fellow writers, I asked, what do you do when you find yourself uninspired? How do you get your writing mojo back?
Continue reading Friends Helping Friends Out of Writing Funks
Over the last few months, I’ve started to compile an ever-growing list of essay and article ideas. About my kids. About travel. About people I’d like to interview. It’s not a long list, but it’s an eclectic one and one I’m usually excited about.
Sometimes, inspiration hits at just the right moment. A couple of weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine published her first novel to widespread acclaim. We live in the same town and although our paths hadn’t crossed in years, there was no way I’d miss her appearance at our local bookstore, a mere 10-minute walk from my house. Listening to her read an excerpt in front of a standing-room-only crowd made me want to pull out a notebook, then and there, and start writing myself.
Freelance writing. Blog writing. Novel writing. Oh my.
For those of you wearing more than one writing hat, how in the hell do you manage?
I’ve been thinking – obsessing, really – a lot this summer about this question, alternating between dogged optimism that I will find space in my brain and in my schedule for all of my writing to thrive, and despair that I will never achieve a rhythm that allows me to devote sufficient attention to more than one area at a time.
Although we don’t live in New York, we’ve been in a decidedly New York State of mind this summer. After a glorious stay in Lake Placid, it was time for our annual visit to Ithaca, the place my aunt and uncle have called home for decades. My mom has taken the girls there every year since they were toddlers. For the past couple of years I’ve joined them. This year, for the first time in a very long time, my husband also came for a few days.
Do you hear those voices, too? You know, the voices that attempt to convince your rational self that you’re not original enough or smart enough or talented enough to be a writer? If so, I am deeply empathetic. And relieved I’m not alone.
Is it human nature to never be 100% satisfied? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself with ever-increasing frequency over the past couple of weeks after hitting my annual winter low, wondering if the goddamn snow would ever melt (yes, it would and it has, almost) and if the outdoor temperature would ever reach 40° again (yes, it would and it has, although not yet consistently).
“Mom, but it’s the holidays! Why do you have to work?” Sophie whined as we drove to the salon to have her curls trimmed. I had just announced that I’d need to put in a few hours of writing every morning between Christmas and New Year’s.
