Writer Interrupted

Hey Guys! Just giving you an update on what’s going on with me. I have to say it’s been a hectic start to an exciting year. Things should be going great. Blue birds should be chirping on my shoulder, furry woodland creatures should want to befriend me. I should suddenly know how to sing and do so at random and expect everyone to already know the lyrics and sing along. 

Book one, Living Violet is in stores, and it’s follow up, Burning Emerald, will be out at the end of May. Right now, I’m working on the third book of The Cambion Chronicles, and I confess, this has been the hardest project yet. Here’s why.



WRITERS BLOCK!!! I equate this condition to herpes—it just shows up out of nowhere and you don’t now you have it until it’s too late. But yeah, this literary flare-up lasted roughly three months, which was not conducive to my deadline. I tried everything: fasting, reading, writing another story; I even shut off the computer for an entire week. All these things seemed to work before, but it wasn’t working now. 

I got depressed and started doing the “what’s it all mean?” and crying in the rain thing. I shot the blue birds and ate most of the woodland creatures along with everything in my fridge. Then I got fat and started working out like crazy, hoping for a muse and better blood circulation. Nada. It was one thing if the problem was written down, but I was agonizing over issues that hadn’t been committed to text yet. Then I got even more depressed and then just stopped caring.

Let me pause and say that even when people say they don’t care what they write about, or what other people think, they secretly do to some degree. Because in the back of your head, you’re thinking, “Have I done this theme before? There is no way I can top that last book! There’s waaay too much info dump in the beginning. Is the pacing too slow? I can’t write an action scene to save my life! How many times am I going to used that same f***ing word?!  Author so-and-so’s book came out the same month as I did and got on the NYT bestsellers list. What sup with that? Why are all my characters acting out of character?” 

If any of these thoughts are going through your head, there’s caring involved. No, I’m talking about no-holds-barred not giving a shit. Then I started writing for hours at a time, just saying the first stupid thing that came to mind, and trust me, it was stupid. I just spewed out these words, hoping that some of it made sense. The coherence ratio was a 60:40, and the relevance score pertaining to my series was about 40:60. 

Even though I had to scrap over half of it, what was left was enough to get the creative juices flowing again. My disease is slowly going into remission, but I won’t do my naked victory dance until I type, THE END on my document. Then and only then will I start caring what the outside world or even what I think.

I don’t now how many other writers have gone, or are going through this sort of thing, but I just wanted to let you know that I understand and appreciate the crippling amount of suck that you’re dealing with. I hope that by sharing my experience will encourage you and help you see that, just like everything in life, writer’s block is something you go through, not around, or away from, but THROUGH. It’s unavoidable, but not unbeatable, and before you know it, those birds will start singing once again.