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Spring Writing Fever

Inspirational blooms in my garden

If you're anything like me, you might be ready to push back your writing chair and do something different for a few weeks. Spring fever always has me wanting to get outside and work in the garden. The last thing on my mind is crunching out a daily word count for a novel.

Maybe the outdoors is exactly what your writing life needs to replenish a surge of creative energy. There's nothing like a change to make the imagination bloom again, and what better place than outdoors where nature is bursting through the warm soil, sending up new shoots and flowering bulbs?

I love when the days warm up and I can get outside for long walks and photo sessions to record all the changes around me. By the time I'm back in my writing chair, I usually have a few new ideas to explore or directions for online research that I might be able to use in the book.

A long country walk
I also find connecting with new friends and projects can help inspire. Most recently, I joined Colorado Writers and Publishers on Facebook, and have participated in several live write-ins. Just last week, I joined the Seven Sentences blog as a book reviewer; connect with them so you can read my short and pithy book reviews soon!

Special writing tools
What ideas do you have for regenerating? Maybe changing routines a bit? Drinking sparkling water while you write, instead of coffee? Lighting a special scented candle just for intense outlining sessions? How about recording some ideas while you soak in a warm bubble bath? Or maybe some heavy weightlifting is your thing. Leave a comment and share how you make your work blossom in new ways.

Dani Greer is founding member of the Blood-Red Pencil blog. Connect with her at Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Comments

  1. Sometimes you just need to leave the writer's cave for a while. There is something magical about springtime and watching nature wake up after a long winter's nap that inspires me.

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    1. And not just for a day or two - a couple of weeks mental vacation sometimes has me salivating to get back to my writing desk.

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  2. Hi Dani -- I set aside the new project (the one I started for Camp NaNoWriMo) and went back to my main wip to add scenes, fix the timeline, and do major revisions. Sometimes just changing direction increases my interest and productivity.

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    1. I find the A-Z Blogging Challenge helped my WIP focus. I blogged about the novel all month, met met a new character, and discovered a red herring for the murder. I've never had an actual personal "book" blog before, and I think I'm going to like it.

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  3. A change of pace has worked for me. After several years of dedicating long hours to editing and then semi-retiring, I found a renewed energy for my own writing. However, the editing experience left me with me some wonderful gifts. For example, errors I never saw in my own stories stood out like sore thumbs in the manuscripts to which I was not emotionally bound. After helping other writers to recognize and overcome them, I can see and fix them in my work. Now everything's coming up roses...almost.

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    1. I have that exact experience after ten years of editing and beta reading for other authors. I enjoy editing, but did it mostly just for income - now I'd discovering the same double-reward you mention, Linda.

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  4. If I'm stuck, I'll go back and search for all my [XXX] placeholders and fill in names of characters, places, etc. I know I'm working on the book in my head even if I don't have much of a uptick in my word count some days. A walk with the dog is great, but the real motivator is realizing that if I'm not writing, "someone" will expect me to do the housework.

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  5. I sometimes think if I had less free time and more expectations from other people, I'd get more writing done.

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