do you ever get a slightly disoriented feeling when you're done with one project and not ready to start another one? When I'm in the zone, I write from the time I get home from work until time to go to bed. I go to sleep thinking about it, and wake up two hours early so I can do a little more before it's time to go to work. While I'm at work, I write myself emails with plot notes, and google stuff I need to know while I'm eating lunch. At meetings, I make notes to myself on legal pads. Now I'm just wandering restlessly around, waiting for something to reach critical mass in my brain, and start all over again.
What do you do?
Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :
Catch up on all that stuff I neglected while I was in the zone.
I'm very familiar with your description - I've been in that in between place since I shipped my last WOTF entry off. I'm not a consistent writer, particularly when my days lack structure and predictability (summer, lovely time for liesure, terrible time from a structure standpoint.)
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I had a certain grinding-of-the-gears feeling when I switched from revising and retyping an old story straight into writing a brand-new one---basically 'cause I wasn't expecting it. Usually if I finish something, I rest a little, then cast about for some new thing to work on (or old thing to revise).
Then again, sometimes the "rest" extends into months. So far this year, I started by writing up some notes to the end of a story I decided I didn't want to finish, let a couple of months pass without writing, worked on first drafts of two stories, worked on an extended essay / rant, checked through three older stories so I could put them up on a website, started revising one of the two abovementioned stories, then started writing a new story. I'd rather be busy than resting.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Should'a added that, when I think of something while at work, I have absolutely no opportunity to write down anything in the way of a note about it. Work tends to be busy-busy-busy---and I regularly nod off while on breaks.
I have to rely on brute memory---which fails me. Often.
But I console with my oft-repeated-here maxim: If the idea was any good, I'd remember it without trouble.
