New Writing, New Ideas

It’s been a lovely, long, hot summer in Saskatoon and, while I have been editing and keeping up with the Wattpad workshops, I haven’t been generating much new writing. I’ve finished a draft of a book and tinkered with another project, but I haven’t had the thrill of filling a blank page with a new story for a while.

Sometimes, when I’ve been focusing on edits for months, I start a new project by thinking about the end result. I get caught up in my imagination with what an editor might think. I am immediately stuck. I can’t write a thing. It’s scary to think about who might read a book one day, the judgements, reviews, argh! And so I give up before I’ve begun.

I deal with this in two ways

– 1) I close the door to all that noise. I shut my office door and ignore the world outside. I disconnect from the internet. I switch off the phone.

-2)I remind myself that I’m my first reader. The book has to please me. In fact, before it’s even a book in my head, it HAS TO BE A STORY.

It’s September first and time for me to get back to regular blogging, writing and dreaming. What are your writing goals for September?