I had every intention of writing a post last Thursday. After all, we returned late Tuesday night and I had Wednesday to do it. Ha. Between sleep deprivation, the time change, and a mountain of other things, I completely forgot—in spite of the reminder that pops up on my phone and laptop each week. So here I am, still adjusting to the time change, but feeling better. I feel rested, happy and energized to dive in to life and writing–and I did!
In terms of my writing, here are some things I did to get myself ready to return to my writing life:
- Identified the projects I wanted to work on. Since I had an opportunity to work on the YA novel in the Caribbean, I wanted to keep that momentum going. I didn’t work on the book while we sailed on the catamaran, but I did spend a lot of time working through scenes in my head as I gazed out on that beautiful turquoise sea. Then I noted what I wanted to write when I got home. I also knew I wanted to revise the picture book my agent and I have been working on. It’s close and I’m hoping it won’t take too much more to get it ready to submit.
Imagined myself back in the groove. I visualized myself actually writing and revising—where I would write, when I would write, and how I would keep myself organized as I moved between projects.- Chose a start date. I decided I would officially start writing on Monday, February 20, but if I could write earlier, great. That gave me time to unpack, do laundry, deal with some issues that had come up while we were gone, and get some sleep. I had lost a lot of sleep and found I couldn’t focus on writing, even when I made the time. So I gave myself permission to let it go. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t maintain the “writing every day” practice I’d established with NaNoWriMo and beyond, but it did help that I continued to think about my projects and work through some of the challenges in my head.
Because I’d done this re-entry planning, I jumped in this week, finishing a revision and sending it to my agent, brainstorming a revision idea to send to one of my picture book critique groups, and made steady progress on the YA. It felt great to have a plan and then execute it.
Woop!
