Clearing out the Cobwebs in your Mind

Winter can often be a time of peace and reflection for writers who look to escape outside distractions in order to channel creative energies into new projects, or concentrate on polishing old ones. It’s a great time to hunker down with a cup of tea, without many distractions, and focus on writing.

But often times, as winter moves on, things start to shift. The atmosphere inside grows stagnant from a lack of fresh air, bulky clothes start piling up, salt and dirt are constantly tracked inside from the remnants of snow. Day in and day out, the world is painted in shades of gray, the barren trees less inspiring and more depressing than before. If you’re anything like me, the dreary cold starts to become a distraction that triggers a longing for the sun and warmth again.

At the first sign of spring, I become eager to clear out the old to make way for the new. I put away the last of the winter decorations and break out flowering spring wreaths and cheerful centerpieces. I replace earthy candles and soaps with lighter, citrus scents and start to gut my dressers and closets of clothes that are taking up too much space.  (I began this process last week, actually, when we were enjoying 50-60 degree weather in New England. Of course, I jumped the gun and totally jinxed the Eastern seaboard, and now we are in the midst of a Nor’easter.)

Regardless of the late-season snow, as my living areas got a (premature) spring makeover, I was hoping the de-cluttering would extend to my mind, freeing space to receive new inspiration. Over the course of winter, as heavy as the air in my house had become, so had my thoughts. Any levity or joy I usually find in the creative process seemed to have abandoned me. 

Regardless, I’m hopeful as new life outside grows, the seeds of creativity will start to bloom again and I will become excited about a new project, or maybe revising an old one. As Fiona stated in her previous post, sometimes new inspiration can come from picking through pieces of older work or borrowing from unfinished projects. If you’re experiencing cabin fever of the mind after a long winter, cleaning, dumping, or altering your surroundings might cause the shift in energy you need to start the creative process flowing again. And ... who knows what jewels lie beneath the clutter.

What's Next? How an Author Chooses Her Next Project

My second book, Keeping Her Secret, came out in August and since then I haven't written a single word on a new book. Not because I don't have any new ideas, but because I have too many.

My first book (Dragons are People, Too) was a fast-paced, high-stakes urban fantasy and the latest was a light-hearted summer f/f romance, so I'm not really hemmed in by genre expectations. My current ideas include a fun contemporary, an other-world fantasy, a heavy contemporary, and even an epistolary historical. I love reading in all genres and want to write most of them.

My love and passion for writing hasn't diminished; I feel the pull as strongly as ever. I just can't decide what to start. We're talking about beginnings this month on YAtopia and it's got me thinking a lot about the next book.

A conversation with my agent helped me rule out one of the books, as editors aren't interested in that certain sub-genre, so I'm starting to make progress. But when you have several potential projects that excite you for different reasons, how do you choose?

One of the projects requires significantly less research than the others, so I could go the easy route and write that one. But I'm not the kind of person who takes the easy way and I actually really enjoy research. Then again, just because it doesn't require as much research doesn't make it easy.

One of the projects resolves around an issue near and dear to my heart, but it is not an easy one to discuss and every bit of it would require careful consideration. I could do my absolute best and still mess up and that is terrifying for many reasons.

I've never been so torn between projects before, so here's my plan: I'm going to take the three most promising projects and write a scene or two from each and see if anything catches. For an ENTJ and an engineer, this loosey-goosey plan makes me anxious. I wish I could develop an equation, assign values, do some excel analysis, and come out with a clear answer, but writing just doesn't work that way. But it's been too long since I put pen to page and my analytical mind is paralyzed, so I have to push it back and let the creative brain take over, if only for a little while.

Unless anyone else has a better method? I'm all ears over here.

Sarah Nicolas is a recovering mechanical engineer, library event planner, and the author of Dragons are People, Too and Keeping Her Secret. She is a contributor for Book Riot and also writes romance as Aria Kane. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing volleyball or drinking wine. Find her on Twitter @sarah_nicolas.

Changing Things Up

Welcome to 2017! 

I love beginnings. New days, new weeks, new months. Yes, I am someone who actually loves Mondays. On Monday, the week always holds possibility and the chance for something better than last week. I also love mornings for the same reason, and because of coffee. Mornings = Coffee, so how can they be bad?

And today is not only a Monday, it’s the first Monday of 2017. A new year, fresh and open to possibilities. A chance to change things up to meet goals.

Okay, I confess, I didn’t wait until the first of the year to change things. I started last Monday. I’m impatient like that. But since I made changes a week ago, I’m now an authority, so I can give advice.

The last couple of months, writing has been a struggle. Really, for the last year. I did complete a manuscript in 2016, but that happened because I took a week off from life and wrote like a fiend. Truthfully, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to work writing into my everyday life. My other responsibilities feel more important: homeschooling five children, feeding those same five children (even though they do a lot of the cooking, I still have to do the grocery shopping, some assisting, and fix a few meals), driving those children to activities, spending time with my husband, exercising. Yes, those responsibilities are all important, and I honestly enjoy them all too. (Except the tenth grocery store visit in a week. That I do not enjoy.) But I was giving these activities priority, which left me too tired to do the writing thing. I had the time to write, but not the mental energy. Sandwiching writing after homeschooling and exercising and before driving and feeding left me too drained. Those two to three hours became my downtime, NOT my writing time. So I decided something had to change.

A few years ago, I started making sure homeschooling happened first because it was the top priority, and for several years, that worked. Then that schedule stopped working. But because I had drilled into myself that I wasn’t motivated enough to succeed at homeschooling when it came second in my day, I took a really long time to address this problem and recognize that I needed to—and could—make a change. Not only that, but life had changed. My kids are older. Our school day isn’t filled with phonics and addition and crafts. I don’t need to be my freshest, most patient self because the subjects no longer try my patience (most days anyway). Writing can take the first of my day when I’m freshest and school the second half, when all I really need to do is check assignments, read, and ask questions.

So if you’re finding writing (or any other important task) not fitting into your life, here are a few tips to try changing things up.

1. Reevaluate Those Things In the Past That Didn’t Work: So you tried once a month cooking five years ago to give you a couple more hours in the evenings to write, but you ended up eating out too often because you consistently forgot to thaw the meals. Or you attempted to write during your child’s music lessons but you were constantly distracted by the teacher’s teaching and couldn’t focus. Just because these things didn’t work before doesn’t mean they can’t work now. Maybe you can tweak the idea to fit your life better, such as once a week cooking, so you can prep ingredients but keep them thawed in the fridge, or write in the car during music lessons since your child is older now. Don’t continue rejecting an idea simply because you tried it once and failed. You’ve changed. Your life has changed. So try again.
2. Think Outside the Box: For a while, I took a long nap in the afternoons. I got up in time to help with dinner, spend time with the family, and after the kids went to bed around 8ish, I wrote until midnight. Then I’d sleep until five-thirty, go to the gym, homeschool, and after lunch, nap again. It was like living two days every twenty-four hours. Day one was gym and homeschooling, Day two was family time and writing. And it worked. So try arranging your schedule unconventionally.
3. Don’t Give Up Too Soon . . . : When implementing a change in your life, don’t quit before giving it a realistic chance. If you’re getting up an hour earlier to write first thing in the morning, and by day three the newness has worn off and there isn’t enough coffee in the world to wake you up, don’t give up on the experiment. Keep setting your alarm. Keep programming your coffee pot. Keep making the change.
4. . . . But Don’t Be Stubborn About What Isn’t Working: If after a month of waking up early you’ve actually written LESS than before you tried writing in the mornings, reevaluate. Obviously, writing early in the day isn’t working. But maybe it’s only the writing muse that sleeps in while you actually find yourself awake and not hating the solitude of the quiet pre-life hours. If so, what could you do during that time that doesn’t require creative brain cells but would free up time later in the day when the words start flowing? 

Most of us are fitting writing into our lives around family and job and other obligations, and sometimes, the pieces stop fitting together. When that happens, don’t give up on a piece that isn’t fitting. Make a change instead. Try fitting those pieces together in a different way, build a new picture, and make a new beginning.

Beginnings

Day two of 2016. The year is still new. Still fresh. Still full of plans and promises. An opportunity for new beginnings, new goals, new successes. But where to start?

To quote Julie Andrews, "Start at the very beginning."

But for me, I don't really have any "beginnings" to start. I'm in the middle of several things, yet, for a couple of months, I've felt stuck in this middle. The middle of writing. The middle of indie publishing plans. The middle of a vast ocean with no sign of land. I haven't even been sure about which direction to row, so I've been sitting in my little boat, drifting over the waves, hiding from battering storms and blistering sun, ignoring all thing writing because I don't know which direction I should be rowing.

But it's time for new beginnings. It's time to start rowing.

In October, I decided to pursue indie publishing, and I haven't changed my mind. I might have felt adrift for a while, but it's time to pull out my compass and find my direction. And sometimes, going back to the beginning is the best way to find direction. I don't necessarily mean to start over, but taking the knowledge gained since starting out the first time and returning to step one, when the ideas were new and fresh. When hope and possibility felt endless. And harness that excitement and let it propel me straight through the middle.

Because while the beginning feels exciting, the ending will be so much sweeter.

Are there any projects you've felt stuck on? Let the promise of a new year and new beginnings give you a second chance.