For the past few few weeks – the past few months, really – I’ve been having trouble writing.  It came on bit by bit, manifesting itself first in an uncertainty about how my current WIP was going to unfold, then as a somewhat scatter-shot attempt to work on other projects while I let the WIP alone, and now as an inability to make myself sit down and write in the mornings.  Those of you who are writers have probably been here (or some version of here) before.  For those of you who aren’t, I can’t even begin to describe how it feels.  Equal parts frustration and misery, with a dash of fury for seasoning.

It took me 6 years from starting the Persephone novel to querying it.  A good bit of that time was letting the novel sit in the back of my head while I thought about where it needed to go.  At the time, I thought it was because I was busy with law school.  Now, I’m wondering if the sit and stew period is part of my writing process and, if it is, what to do about it.  I don’t want to sit on this novel for another three years.  I also don’t want to find myself writing utter rubbish simply to put words on the page.  I’m not sure yet if the solution is to turn to another project for a time, or to go back to outlining and plotting this one, but neither is going to happen unless I can get myself back into the habit of sitting down to write every morning.

Mostly, I’m trying to be California Zen about it all.  Trying to be okay with my limitations, and with working within those.  Trying to be okay with the fact that I’ve gotten a lot of rejections lately, because that’s what happens to writers, even good ones.  Trying to forgive myself when I don’t sit down and write in the morning.  Because life isn’t going to get any less busy or less crazy, and re-working the balance now doesn’t mean I’m not going to have to do it again in six months, or six months after that.  And, above all, remembering why I write in the first place – for those moments when everything clicks, and the words do come, and everything is golden.