witter (ˈwɪtə)
vb – (often foll by: on) to chatter or babble pointlessly or at unnecessary length
n – pointless chat; chatterCOLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY – COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED, 12TH EDITION 2014 © HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
Bouncing Back into a Routine
How does a writer come off the post-holiday season madness and greet the new year? Well, I’m not sure how the veteran professionals do it, but I can tell you how I managed.
I binge-read fanfiction to an unhealthy level (don’t judge until you’ve read the good stuff). I struggled through a solid month of writer’s anxiety (more on that HERE). I finally managed to crawl back into book blogging & managing We Write Fantasy. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Melissa Wright, K.D. Jones and Belle Malory, I may have remained off my rocker for the better part of January. Sometimes it takes the support of your friends to pull your head out of the clouds and into reality.
Looking back, I can see why I struggled.
2017 was not a good year for me or my family. Between financial and health issues, my family went through the gauntlet and there were moments I barely felt like I was floating above water. More like the tip of my nose maybe. Regardless, it was almost a relief to take a hiatus during the holidays. For a couple of weeks I could unwind, read whatever trash I wanted and not think.
Now if you know anything about personality types, you may know most authors in the world fall under a similar spectrum. We all tend to be dreamers, with our heads in other worlds than the plane we live in. We see the world in shades of rose, and to shy away from the ugly and cruel. We soar when we are creating and simultaneously sink into the “depths of despair” when times get tough or inspiration dries up.
So while a hiatus was healthy for me in some ways, completely abandoning all routine turned hazardous. I didn’t make the writing progress I wanted to this month. I had grand plans of finishing Silver Hollow Part 4 by the end of January. As you may have guessed, I barely managed a chapter and haven’t written since. The great news is, pushing through that one long chapter helped me overcome my writer’s anxiety (sounds silly, but it’s a thang). I know how to write what I need to write. The problem is putting it into practice.
The real issue isn’t that I need time to write, rather I need to re-learn how to manage my time.
While I would love to be the person who keeps mental tabs on everything, unfortunately I require lists (lots of bullet points naturally). I’m happiest when I have it all written out in front of me, even if I don’t follow the schedule to the T. Somehow seeing it in front of me helps me wrap my brain around the sheer mass of what I need to do.
While I failed to write or blog regularly here, I did manage to put in good time for We Write Fantasy. A little about WWF from the site:
We Write Fantasy is a blog by fantasy authors to share about our books, talk about writing and spread our love of all things fantasy. Started by Jennifer Silverwood, author of Wylder Tales & Melissa Wright, author of The Frey Saga, we quickly realized there wasn’t a place online we could hang out with other writers in our genre. While it’s written by authors it’s for all our readers and lovers of the genre.
I’m happy to report I was able to blog here while also managing content for our other authors. We are working hard to build up this community brick by brick, but it’s still in the beginning stages. If you want to read some more of my witterings, you can easily see them here:
In Other News
While I’ve struggled to find a daily rhythm elsewhere, I have been working at chipping away at my January goals. Yesterday, I finally managed to send out my monthly newsletter! It has a few hidden goodies in it this time which you absolutely want to see here:
But since you asked so nicely here is a sneak peek 😉
Goals for this week
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At least 2K words for Silver Hollow P4.
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Begin updating of back matter in previous books.
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Schedule blogs ahead of time.
Helpful Links
“Gearing Up for Launch!” – from Author Emma Hamm
“The Indie View”– Great resource for Indie authors looking for book reviews.
“Stocksy United” – A lesser-known but still great stock resource for your blog/site.
Jennifer Silverwood 