Good morning! Hope all is well…
Have you ever looked at your work in process and your mind was more like the picture above? I’ve done this so much that sometimes I have to step away. But what can we do as writers to clear up the fog in our brain?
This weekend I spent most of the time laying around, trying to get over the cold that took over my body on Thursday. I’d planned on doing a major catch up on word counts, but every time I looked at my laptop, I groaned. My head was fuzzy, which is understandable with a cold, but the fuzziness I’m talking about is story line fuzzy…
As you know from my many posts, I try to outline all of my manuscripts, but even then, fuzziness can take over. Just this past week I had one of those, ‘where was I headed with this part of the story’ moments. I went back and forth between my outline and my manuscript, making notes and trying to regain the momentum. The best thing I did was to step back, take a breath, then go back to it.
Ok, so sometimes with deadlines we can’t do that, but I’m not talking about stepping back a week or more, just a couple of hours. Maybe take a long walk, going over the story in your head. And yes, the walk will help clear your head of the fuzzies. I’ve worked out more story problems while putting my tennis shoes on and walking up the road. Amazing how much it helps. If it is raining, then you can watch a movie, lay back and listen to music, or even plot out another story.
But what I’m getting at is when the story gets too much to handle, step back, clear your head and begin again. It helps. I actually scraped a whole manuscript doing this. Yes, it scared me to death, but I did it and was glad I did when I started over. For some reason, we go down a rabbit hole that there’s no way out of, and that can lead to a deeper hole, LOL!
As always, good writing and May God Bless You…
Highlander’s Bride is coming soon… Keep watching for the cover reveal!
Stephanie Hurt - Romance Author 