Switching Creative Gears

I spent most of the month of August, immersed in creative work of the visual sort. I was under a deadline and so had to put everything else on the proverbial back burner, but with that project now complete I can return to normalcy, or as close as my life gets to normal, anyway!

But I’m kind of like an older model car, and a bit clunky. I don’t switch gears as easily as I once did, that’s for sure. It’s a bit like that feeling of returning from a big vacation, where you feel like you need some time off just to recover from your vacation.

The other day, I attempted to work on a writing project that was back-burnered earlier this month. I think I might have written a whole paragraph. I spent the rest of the time working on trying to figure out just where I was in the project, and just where I was going. Actually, I wrote more than a paragraph. I filled several Post-It Notes with plot points and such to try and make sense of the scattered thoughts in my head. Then I spent some time reordering and rearranging my little notes until I had a vague idea about how the next few chapters of the book needed to go. Maybe today, I’ll actually get to work on one of those next chapters.

I suppose it’s a fitting time to be switching gears as summer will be drawing to its unofficial close this weekend, and, around here anyway, kids will be starting up a new school year. Switching from summer brain to school-year brain was always something of a chore as a kid. Of course, some new outfits and some shiny new school supplies made this transition a little easier.

Hmm, perhaps some new clothes and a pretty new notebook, will make it easier for me to dive back into this book, or perhaps that’s just the procrastination talking.

For everyone else out there struggling with switching gears, I wish you lots of success. Hopefully, you’re not so clunky at this as I am!

— Alissa