Time out

Normally, I like to write every day.  If I'm creating something new, I aim for a word count of a thousand words a day.  If I'm editing, then I'll try and get five to ten chapters edited a day.

But sometimes when I'm getting bogged down in things I need a break from writing.  I needed to do this recently.  I was doing the final edits of Panthera : Death Song, and trying to write the first draft of Panthera : Death Plain at the same time.  Because the books are the second and third in a series, I began getting confused between the two narratives.

I started thinking that I'd got locations and scenes wrong.  I even forgot that Death Plain takes place on the open savannah while Death Song is set in the enclosed rainforest.  There was nothing for it,  I needed to take a break.

Time out allows us to regroup.  I focused on finishing the edits for Death Song, and took time off writing for a few days to read somebody else's work.  I read Teri Terry's Shattered, the third of the Slated books.  And while I was finding out the end of her story my mind was also sifting ideas for my next project, a trilogy of young adult books.  I was absorbing her crisp writing style and masterful use of cliffhangers at the end of chapters.  And the tight focus on the viewpoint of the main character through the first person narration.  All of these things added to the sense of danger and paranoia that existed in Kyla/Rain's world.  

As well as being entertained, I learned about shaping stories.  I read about someone else's near future dystopia and it triggered off ideas for my own.  

Time out does this.  It refreshes us, "fills the well", as Julia Cameron would say.  And it gives us ideas to use in our own work.  And now I've finished the edit of Dearh Song, I have no excuse for being distracted from writing Death Plain.  Time out can lead to a renewal of discipline and resolve that gets us to the end of the project.  Next time you're stuck, give it a try.