Originally posted on March 22, 2011 at 7:16 PM
“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.” –Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” –Ray Bradbury
I’m in between projects. I’m working on an awesome blog series coming up in about a week, but it’s nonfiction. I have a handful of fiction and poetry pieces started, but they all seem to be… well… not stalled, exactly, but perhaps receded. I like them, I remember them, but I don’t want to write on them. At least not right now.
I’m missing that one creative project that really calls to me – not in the front of my mind, but in the back of it. That mysterious voice that speaks separately from my mouth, to only my ears. My muse, if you’ll pardon the cliché.
You might think this is a good thing. I have recently finished a 100,000 word novel, edits and all, and submitted it to a handful of excellent agents, some of whom actually requested it specifically. I feel relieved, but not exhausted. It’s strange, but I still want to write.
I’ve still got the bug, but nothing to work on.
They (and who the hell are They, anyway?) say that you should take a break between big projects. That you should relax and enjoy “real life” for a while, to remind yourself what the real world is like with, you know, those three-dimensional, physically-existent people. Ha! As if they’re ever interesting. Okay, maybe a bit. But still, half of my life is in my head and in my Word documents – and I like it that way.
This has never happened to me before, this strange sense of floating. Maybe I’m being too impatient. I mean, it’s only been a few days. But I feel like a shell. Like half of my life is missing.
Writers, have you ever felt like this? (And does it happen to other types of artists too?) Do you find yourself floundering between projects? Does some idea usually stand up, wave its arms, and call to you, or do you sit down and choose one based on logic? I’m really asking.
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