I thought it would be easy to get back to writing today. Boy, was I wrong.

I sat in front of my keyboard (usually with my phone in hand) doing everything but writing. When I did try to focus long enough to tap at the keys for a moment, I would get one or two sentences out and then delete the whole thing. Sometimes, I would delete it then, hit Control-Z to bring it all back and I’d try again. I should have walked away the first time I did this.

Okay, let’s face it — I’ve been writing a long, long (LONG!) time. I know what to do when I get blocked at a certain part of a story. With that in mind, I tried the tricks.

I tried jumping in time to another scene I knew I would have to write. That failed. Creative voice crossed her arms and turned away because she wasn’t certain how the characters would all come onto the scene and didn’t want to write “crap” that would just have to be redone later.

I tried writing down a few things and jotted ideas on my Boogie Board Blackboard to see if I could visually see how they connected. The creative voice had no fun there and the critical voice threatened to come in with those questions like, “Well, how are you going to end this story?” and “Well, what’s his motivation? Why’s he doing this?” So, I captured the notes and moved on (actually, it was back to another distraction, which I then had to break out of).

I tried going to another project. I mean, if I’m stuck on this one, let’s just go work on another. Creative voice stamped her foot and said she wasn’t budging from this story. Not even for Loki, and Loki always seems to work if I’m stuck.

Okay, well then let’s try starting the next book in the series. Well, that was acceptable, but not really what she wanted to do.

What did she want? She wanted the next line that would work.

I had no idea what that was. I went to fix myself lunch, found a speculative documentary to watch — searching until my creative voice screamed, “That one!” at me — then went to take a short nap so my creative voice could integrate whatever she wanted to process. I woke with strange images running through my head. It was kind of looking at a map and a schematic all at the same time. I have no idea what it all meant, but my creative voice was happy and assured me that it did have a point.

Then I returned to the story and just kept trying different attacks at the next scene like one experiments with placing random pieces of a puzzle together. At first, it was a little frustrating because I’d been so certain when I woke up that it was going to be clearer and here I was still playing around and not getting anywhere just like earlier. But then, I felt the creative voice sound like a gong being rung, and I was back into the story and running along.

Some days it is hard to trust the process. I should’ve listened to the creative voice earlier when she said she wanted to go watch tv today instead of fighting. I knew I was going to be blocked on this project last Thursday when I finished the prior chapter and had no idea where the new one was going to start. I knew I wouldn’t be working on it much while doing the show, so I thought I’d have it figured out by the next time I sat down to write. But, I do know that if my creative voice needs some juice behind a story, I won’t be able to work on it until I let her have it. Plus, my oracle cards this morning told me that I needed to take it a bit slower today, so why should I be surprised? Oh, and when I was doing my morning writing and questions, the energy was very low and loose (not in a negative way, just relaxed almost), rather than being ready to charge. I figured it was because it was a Sunday and I had no plans for the day like I do on several days next week. I guess I wasn’t asking the right questions of the day.

Well, it’s time to move onto the next adventure. Until next time, cheers!