Recharging Your Battery

I was trying to come up with some writing tip to share with you all, this being a blog about writing I thought it would be nice if I did more than give you constant updates on my own projects(just finished chapter 1 of my new project last night). Anyway I was trying come up with something and, as usual when I can’t figure out what to write, I started surfing the net. There are a lot of blogs I need to catch up on so I have plenty of stuff to help me procrastinate.

Anyway, I was reading through the blogs and read this post on D Nathan Hilliard’s Dark and Stormy Blog. In it he talks about how he just finished a project, and how his productivity level seems to have dropped this month. The blog reminded me of something I was talking with some other authors a few months ago, namely recharging your battery. NOTE: I am not saying this is what is happening with Nate, his post just reminded me of it

Every author I know has had this problem at one point or another. They fly through a novel, some short stories, heck maybe even more than one novel. Then they sit down to write and…nothing. There isn’t anything there. They are drained creatively.

They need to recharge their battery. It is different for every writer, but they need to stop their “must write everyday” mentality and take a few days, a few weeks, or even a month off. They need to read a book or two (because sadly writing usually cuts into reading time) they need to watch a movie, or see a play. There might be a few people who don’t need to do this, but all of my friends and I find it impossible to be creative in a vacuum. You have to let the creations of others plant seeds in your mind that will grow into new and wonderful things in and of themselves.

Personally I am trying to work out a schedule where I write and recharge my battery at the same time. Which will pretty much amount to less writing and more time spent enjoying the world around me and the imaginative creations of others, though with two three month olds I am not sure how much of either is going to get done. I mean last night I had an idea for a story about a baby who is a hard nosed detective in a baby land, “sometimes you suck the binky, and sometimes the binky sucks you”. Hmmm…maybe not the best idea I have ever had.