Saturday, April 23, 2011

Moody Moody Moods

Let's face it; people are moody. If we all wore mood rings, the rings would change colors so often the rings would be rendered useless. When it's all sunny and shiny outside, we get in the mood to be active, to smile, to frolic in the sunniness. When it's gloom and doom outside, our moods usually mirror that and all we feel motivated to do is sit inside and watch a movie, or write depressing songs. Our moods like to dictate what we do and what we feel like doing.

Lately, I haven't been in the mood to read. Weird, huh? I also haven't really been in the mood to write. I'm starting a new project and I think that's mostly why. I hate writing the beginning of a story, so I'm usually never motivated to work on it. If I'm not in the mood, I don't want to sit at the computer and force something. I've tried doing that in the past and I wasn't happy nor were my characters. Thankfully, though, I think my mood is changing and I'll be invested in my new project again soon. :-)

How do you all cure "bad moods"? Do you like to just take a break and come back later to whatever it is you're not in the mood to be doing?

14 comments:

  1. Yes, I just take a break & come back later. sometimes I get major burnout on either reading or writing, and need to take a breather! I also play guitar & write music, so sometimes I go through long music-making binges during which my story writing tends to come to a grinding halt.

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  2. I have to take breaks. I'm on break now, haha. And I also loathe writing beginnings. I force myself to get something down, no matter how bad, so that I can get to the "fun" stuff in the body of the story. I go back and revise the intro afterward. Blah. Moods.
    On a side note, thunderstorms put me in a good mood. Love them. :) Drizzling rain, on the other hand, makes for a grumpy house.

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  3. That's interesting - I LOVE writing beginnings, while somewhere around the 40k mark, writing invariably turns into hell. Go figure.

    Bad moods... I usually cure them by eating. :D That, and singing way too loudly.

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  4. Riley, I was looking around for the "Like" button for your eating and singing comment! :)

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  5. I think if you try to force it, it doesn't work. It's hard, but maybe exercise or listen to some inspiring music? (For the writing part.) For the reading part, I guess go crazy. Grab something you'd never read but that's supposed to be good and see what happens. It's tough. This is a slump-ie time of year. Best! <3 <3

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  6. At first I'll push on through the "bad mood" and make myself write. It usually works! If not, I leave it alone and do something else.

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  7. Great question! Chocolate helps, I find :)

    Also copious amounts of tea, and interacting with friends online who are all happily writing away.

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  8. Oh, yeah, take a break. When I'm down, I do something fun to distract myself from whatever has me in a bad mood. I know it's still there, but when the anger passes it's usually not as depressing to deal with.

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  9. I take a break and do something else. I like to read (duh!) Playing with my dog, Abbey, who is a black Lab, takes my mind off of the negative and I often come up with an idea to continue. That's, of course, if I remember it by the time Abbey is too tired to play.

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  10. I do something physical: a walk is ideal, but even folding laundry works. It needs to be something that you can do automatically, freeing your brain to wander.

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  11. I punch my moods into submission.

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  12. I went through a reading lull too. To get me out of bad moods I go shopping. So stereotypical I know, but it's true.

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  13. Shopping and chocolate are my two favorite cures mentioned, haha. :-) I like the idea of taking a walk too. I should start doing that.

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  14. See, I wish I was more into writing OTHER parts of a story other than the beginning. I can get a story set up (have done lots of them), but I never actually make it to the finish line.... :(

    When I get in a bad mood I read or get on the internet... I do that a lot, so it's kind of business as usual... But it's a great stress reliever!

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