Here is one chapter of the book I am working on. I love images and humor – so readers get both [along with helpful ideas] – the characters have been introduced earlier….
The Writing Conversation
Poopy Brain:
“I’m weary. We could start tomorrow.”
Surfin’ Brain:
“Please don’t put this on me. The water is perfect NOW!”
Many moons ago, when I still lived in the Boston area, my friend Freda* and I were having a hard time writing one of our books, and she said our brains needed fallow time. We talked about it — and went with that.
Just as fields are left unplanted so they can replenish, she thought our writing brains needed to be replenished — by taking a break from writing!
We stopped work on our book — and each of us went on to do the other things we were doing, and let our writing brains sit fallow for a while.
Some of our colleagues called it wasting time — but for me — then, like now, it is not wasted time – it is a vastly different type of productive time – and it is nearly invisible.
Back then, our fallow time was followed by rapid writing time, a finished manuscript, and publication! That period of NOT writing did what it was supposed to do, like the fallow field, we were again filled with ideas and the words to write!
I sometimes remember this fallow time idea, but I mostly forget the concept – until I was working on my current book about getting stuck, and it came back to me like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Fallow time was what my brain needed this August and September!
I have an easier time with how I feel when I can label it — and labeling my brain status as fallow time made it easier for me to connect with what was/is going on.
I’m almost out of my fallow time, but I am not pushing it — I sit and remember all those other fallow times when the words came back — rushing out and into coherent content — and I know they will again do that — and that’s why knowing I am in fallow time is so great!
I know it has an endpoint and abundance will reappear!
The brain energy is coming back!
And the ideas are flowing!
PS [sigh] now there is no publisher to clean up the manuscripts, edit, and advertise….that’s on me now….
*Freda Rebelsky, Ph.D. was my professor in Graduate School — and my best friend, co-author, and colleague. She died in 2009 and I still miss talking to her about Psychology. If you ever had a child development or lifespan textbook by Rebelsky and Dorman or Dorman and Rebelsky — I’m that Dorman.
I have not posted here since the end of July. But during that time, I have almost finished one [the first!] book on writing when you don’t feel like it.
I’ve also sketched out ideas for more – all on the topic of getting unstuck – with writing, life, careers, etc.
And I am updating this website to reflect that shift.
Will it all be done soon? Who knows? But it feels like forward movement – and forward is good. That’s the yea me part.
The impetus for all this was the July challenge – hence the thank you part.
Many of you commented on my random posts and offered encouragement and ideas.
Book 1 will be done soon, and I’ll be putting it on KDP with a few free days – and I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens…
The July challenge ends today, and I wish to say thank you to Paul and to those who commented on my infrequent posts. You all gave me ideas and encouragement for my “next-up-to-write-projects.”
Between now and the next challenge I plan to tackle at least two of my current ideas and put them into a series of books. I’ll let you all know how that goes… right now I have the ideas and the motivation!!
I’ll be unleashing my words to the universe – or at least to Kindle.
For starters, I’m finishing the one I call ” How to write when you don’t feel like writing” and the one after that will be on lifespan psychology with a focus on healthy aging or living with a nonlinear brain or dealing with stress or …. or …..
The indoor gardening one needs to start this Fall so I can take photos of what I am doing – that has its own agenda….it can be a follow-along series of books documenting my own process.
And of course, I need to leave time for any other topics that come to mind as I work on these!
For a few days now, I’ve been trying to get myself to sit and write a post – knowing that that never works to motivate me….
The writing motivation was elsewhere, which is good because it’s those other places that I have been working on this year and plugging away at posting on my blog is something I tend to only do when I sign up for this challenge – and even then I sometimes let the whole challenge month go by without writing.
This time around I’ve written more than my usual amount because I’ve been willing to sit here and write about why I don’t feel like writing and decide that’s one of the books I’m working on – how to motivate yourself when you don’t feel like writing… Of course that book doesn’t really get done except in spirits because it’s about the issue of not writing
But probably to distract myself from thinking about why I’m not writing anything, I got motivated to think about psychology. It’s my field. I’ve published several textbooks – I’ve written a lot of articles about it, and I have taught many courses on different aspects of psychology and especially about lifespan development – so I decided to start thinking about writing more psychology books and I spent hours working on that.
It felt good – but that’s not posting here – yet both of those happenings felt OK.
Like in the image at the top, all those writing choices are the correct choices!!
However I look at it it’s a win-win for me!! It got me sitting and writing this, which will keep me going for a bit later today – and again during the week.
No – I am not about to punch my monitor, but I am so frustrated with the theme have been using for years. I used to love the theme, but then the company got sold, which is a modern thing that happens, and like many of the things that I was with for a while when they get sold – annoying things happen.
For a while I wasn’t having too much of an issue with it but of late I am – and so I think I am canceling my subscription.
What I’m using today is actually a free WordPress developed theme. We’ll see how that works.
I was always into modern technology. As a kid I wanted that Dick Tracy watch – I probably had a toy watch that I could talk to and do all those things with – now I don’t have a toy.
I now have a smartwatch. And yes, I can actually talk on it!!
And my phone? I rarely use it for phone calls but if I want to, I can see people on it when I talk to them – just like the old science fiction comic books, watches, and phones.
The first computer I actually had anything to do with was [I’m guessing] an IBM that took up a whole basement of a building in Boston and I was working with one of my grad school professors helping do the data analysis for one of his research projects.
Someone did the key punching. I don’t type so I would never offer to do that, but then the punched cards were fed into this huge machine, which did “stuff” with them. Somebody else programmed the computer and then at the other end after some amount of time, reams of green computer paper came spewing out of the computer and it was my job to do something with all of the info coming out of the computer.
I laugh now because I used to be very good at math and data analysis and now we have programs that give you all the answers. You don’t have to use your brain much anymore.
And that’s my love/hate situation with technology. I am at the point in my life where I no longer want to do all of the basic stuff myself. I don’t want to code. I don’t want to go under the hood and have to figure out all the things about making it work. I guess the saying is: been there done that.
It’s like with cars. I used to know how to work on engines because my father insisted I know how to do that before I was allowed to take the car out on my own – because he knew that I would be driving places where I wasn’t going to be near service stations. So I could do a lot of basic engine work. I’ve had cars as a grown-up that needed things done that I could do.
Now? I take it to the service station because it’s all computerized and I won’t fiddle with them anymore.
So I don’t hate technology. I’ve always loved it. I just hate when it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, but that’s more me than the technology. One thing I’ve learned since I started fiddling around with computers is that they have times they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, but then neither do people. [I do have a Ph.D. in Psychology.]
I’ve learned what happens in those times is I take a break: from the people, from the computers, from the cars, etc – and now I’m going to go out and play in my garden because for me, that’s a good break from technology.
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