I'm Back

Upon my word (a rather common expression in Emma, which is my current reading book), I’ve been absent for more than three weeks! The first week I was enjoying the visit of a dear friend and getting ready to be in a wedding (one of the best weeks of this year so far!). The week after I was “recuperating” (more on that in a minute). And earlier this week, I just couldn’t think of anything to post. But what has also bothered me is that I haven’t been very faithful in commenting on my friends’ blogs…and I apologize for the neglect!

I'm going to share some honest thoughts. I haven’t exactly gone through a crisis in my writing—nothing that drastic. I’ve just tried to set things in order. I had been getting so far away from actual writing on any of my projects that my creativity felt dry. Once general, outside-life busyness was over each day, I still wasn’t making any headway, but getting distracted by social media and other internet attention-grabbers. I was getting burned out in the “author has to market” mindset and not writing, which is why I’m even online doing this sort of thing. So I put much of that aside and just worked on my projects (I have three), resolving that even if I have to start over with marketing when I’m ready to jump in again, it’d be worth it. I needed to rediscover my love for writing and not worry about marketing (which I’ve never really known if I was doing it right anyway). Worrying about becoming known made me stop writing. Inadvertently, but still, unfortunate and pointless.

From now on I’m going to take it slow. I may not post as much on my blog, but that will (or at least should!) be because I’m actually writing soon-to-be books. My goal is not to allow the author business to overwhelm the writer business. Other people know how to handle it, but I’m still learning. If you are going through a similar reassessment (in writing or something else), I hope that this is encouraging to you. It’s okay to not be able to do everything you think you should do; it’s okay to draw back, pray, and straighten your priorities according to how God is leading you, even if that means you have to say no to some things.

Have you ever felt that busy-work was crowding out your creativity? Do you have any advice?