MOMENTUM
Last night, my son asked why I stopped writing my blog. The question surprised me. I didn’t realize he read it regularly enough to know I hadn’t written anything in a few weeks. I have had this mental block since February when I went on an unexpected birthday trip to Charleston. I didn’t write my normal Monday post because I wanted to enjoy my vacation. Then the next week I had a trip to Chicago for AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs). I was too focused on networking with other writers to do any writing. And once I got back from Chicago, I headed off to Napa Valley with my husband. Who can write when there is wine to be tasted?
Through the course of all that traveling, I lost the energy needed to write the series on women writers. I no longer had the internal drive to get the work done. To be honest, I just didn’t care any more. It felt too much like a chore. Then I received another rejection letter, and I wondered if it was even worth it to spend time writing at all. Thank God I have a friend from my writing group who won’t leave me alone. If it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t have written anything at all last month. I completely lost my momentum. I could spend the rest of this post speculating on why, but I doubt that would be very motivating.
Writing is kind of like exercising. When you’re in the flow, you don’t have to force yourself to go to the gym. You just go. There is something in your body pushing you forward, driving your behavior. You want to workout. Your body craves it. The movement feels good. You can’t imagine why you would ever stop. But then something happens. You miss a day because you’re tired, and then the next thing you know it has been two months since the last time you worked out. You have to build your momentum again. You have to push yourself in order to get back into the flow.
Well, that’s what this post is all about. I’m putting myself in motion. I’m rebuilding my writing momentum. It’s not easy. But the development of a process creates energy to drive our behavior. So today I worked out for an hour and now I’m at my desk, writing.
Where do you need to build momentum? What do you need to make happen?