Muddling Through Monday

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Today is a muddled kind of Monday. Celebration aftereffects have co-mingled with reality and the burgeoning independence of my newly minted graduate to create a mental morass that makes it hard to focus on a topic, let alone write about one.

Then I remember. Writers don't need to be constrained by anything as mundane and inconvenient as reality. If today is too confusing, too upsetting, too overwhelming, I merely need to leave it behind and enter the world of my characters. Doing so is hard work, and the on-ramp to this world is often uphill, but writing is also a vacation of sorts; it's a way to leave behind the puzzling pieces of the real world and weave a world of my own choosing where I am the master of what occurs. At least until my characters step in to voice their opinions.

Speaking of which, my characters will be doing the talking right here, beginning this Wednesday as I kick off a new feature where I interview some of the players from Casting the First Stone and Chasing a Second Chance. I've spoken with a few of them already (yes, I know how that sounds), so I have a few interviews ready to go, but I'm also happy to take requests, as I'm subjecting all of them to the same interview process.

Also, if you're looking for some fun summer reads, I hope you'll visit The Beach Reads Bonanza, a Facebook party which kicks off tomorrow at noon CST (1 PM ET). I'm up first, hosting from 1-1:30 or so, and will be followed by a flood of authors chatting and sharing book information. There will be games, prizes and great titles to add to your summer wish list, so I hope you'll stop by :-) The Beach Reads Bonanza runs through Monday, June 13.

And now, back to reality...or not. I hear it's overrated.

Photo: Pippalou via Morguefile

Just Keep Typing....

I am one of those writers who thinks that the cure for writer's block is simply to write. It's not that I don't believe that people get stuck -- I've been there, and it is a terrible feeling -- it's that I've somehow always managed to find my way around the roadblock imposed by a blank page.

But lately, I've been struggling with this blog. Used to coming up with topics fairly easily, I've had a hard time dealing with the fact that some days, no topic shows up. At least not in time for me to post on the schedule I've set for myself.

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Part of the problem is that I'm immersed in other things. I tend to forget that when I worked full-time,
I wasn't posting two or three times a week, and topics were sometimes scarce. It was only when I retired and had plenty of time to write that I got myself on a posting schedule. The myriad topics that magically appeared then had little to do with a schedule and everything to do with the fact that I'd made a major life change, which lent itself to all sorts of introspection and new insights.

But now, things have settled into a new normal. Though I'm still figuring out my life schedule (which has changed three times in as many years), I'm trying to stick to a posting schedule. And since my readers don't want to hear about developmental theorists, research methods in psychology or brain development from the prenatal period to the end of middle childhood, there are many days where I have difficulty shifting from class planning to blog posts.

One thing that has remained consistent, though, is that the only way around is through. If I want to continue to post regularly (and I do), I just have to write something -- anything -- even if it's at 7:00 at night instead of 7:00 in the morning. In addition, I have to accept that no matter how big a hurry I am in -- or perhaps because of that -- some posts just won't gel. For now, they'll need to be stashed away until the time I can massage them into shape and bring them to the level they need to be to see the light of, well, this site.

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I worry that I'll lose readers. That if I don't post on Monday and Wednesday mornings, people will stop visiting me here and reading my posts. But mostly, I worry about what will happen if all I can come up with is a blank screen.

And all of that worrying just backs me into a figurative corner, where I sit and stare at a blank screen I can't fill because panic has rendered my fingers incapable of typing.

So, I've decided the only way to handle things is to chill out. To see what comes out of my fingers if I simply start typing. To maybe revisit some old posts, shine them up a bit, and repost them on occasion when life is too busy for the new stuff to take root.

Meanwhile, I hope you'll bear with me, because while I know all writers get stuck, I refuse to accept the notion that a temporary shortage of ideas is a permanent state of affairs.

And if you'd like to suggest a topic, well, that'd be just grand. I can't promise to write something spectacular on everything that gets suggested, but who knows what we can spark together?

It'll definitely trump a blank page.