I'm back to something of a normal writing schedule, finally. I'm not always getting my writing done in the morning, like I'd prefer. Often having to squeeze it in over my lunch break, or between getting off work and cooking dinner. But I am getting it done, thank goodness.
Weekends are still my best option, though. Having a long block of unbroken time lets me tackle things that require more focus, like editing a short story (which I got done this weekend, and started sending out to beta readers). If only weekends were longer, eh?
The best thing that's started happening recently, though, is that I'm getting ideas again.
Before the pandemic, I'd stumble across an idea for a story (short or novel) multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day. i'd capture it in whatever notes software I was using at the time (I've been through several, don't judge me). Starting a new project was a matter of rifling through those ideas to find the one that resonated with me the most, while telling myself I'd get to the others "someday."
That all dried up in 2020. It's like that part of my brain went to sleep, waiting for a time when I wasn't worried about surviving the week.
It makes sense that it would, but I missed it. Even though I thought I knew why it was gone, I wondered if it would ever come back. If I would ever be an idea-generator again.
But thankfully, it has! Over the last week or so, I've been coming up with story ideas -- most of them novels -- every other day. Bits of dialog come to me, or a scenario that I'd thought about before suddenly clicks with something I read, and the seed of a story is made.
Some of them are about novels I've already written. I may have mentioned the four novels I have in draft form (3 first, 1 second), a, um, embarrassing habit of mine that I intend to correct soon. I'd thought that all but the last would end up trunk novels, but lately I've been getting ideas on how to tighten up the others, things to trim and change to make them better. And you know what? I might just pull them out of the trunk after all.
I mean, in the end it's my body of work, and I can do with it what I please, right? Maybe they won't sell, even if I edit them all, but editing them will be good practice. Especially if I do it deliberately, getting better each time. So eventually I will draft and edit a novel that'll sell.
...you know, if I can just find the time for all of that 😅
Anyway, I'm happy to be generating ideas again, even if they sometimes distract me from the novel I'm currently drafting. Welcome back, formerly missing part of my brain!
