WoW - Enthusiasm
Finally getting back some of my enthusiasm for writing. Yay! There was a dry period for awhile when nothing I wrote interest me. I suppose you can say I was in a funk during which I tried a number of exercises to snap out of it. Wrote junk. Read. Tried writing something completely different from my normal genre. Nope. Nada. Nothing was working.
Not sure what snapped me out of this funk, but I’m hoping its made a permanent exit - stage right. There is nothing worse than a writer who cannot write. Its disheartening and depressing. And something that isn’t exactly uncommon. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. She’s going through a rough period in her life and says there is no way she can even consider writing. Her life is too disrupted to allow herself the time and energy to devote to her writing. Can’t say I blame her but this can run in both directions. Controversy in your life might also act as a catalyst and thrust you into productivity. A sort of therapy or activity to take your mind off of your problems.
Which do you think is more likely. A disruption in your personal life affecting your writing adversely? Or your writing allowing you to work through your personal life?
February 1st, 2010 at 6:05 am
Liz, you had a lot going on with you. I’m not sure whether there’s an answer to your question. I’ve read articles and blogs by writers who said their loved ones were dying, and they wrote in the hospital and after the death (these were published writers with deadlines), and that’s what got them through it.
The days are getting longer now. They started growing shorter in October. That affects our feelings, big time.
I was getting depressing dreams for a few weeks. Someone on a loop that I’m on said that we need extra Vit. D in winter. I already take Vit. D year round, but I started taking more just before I went to bed — and the depressing dreams and thoughts stopped.
Now that it’s brighter out, I stopped the extra Vit. D. But it’s good to know.
February 1st, 2010 at 8:32 am
I’d heard about taking vitamin D as well, Edie. In fact, I began taking it. Perhaps that’s what snapped me out of my funk.
I guess every writer is different and handles aversity differently. As you say, there are those who can work through trying circumstances and those who are frozen. You never know how you’re going to react until you’re in a situation.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Hmm, that’s interesting the connection with Vitamin D. I wouldn’t say I was in a funk, but I really didn’t feel like working. I just thought my life was unsettled (waiting to start a new treatment and my folks moving in). But now that things are settled, I’m not minding work. I am, however, still more or less preoccupied with my health and learning new paradigms for health and healing. That’s the anthropologist in me!
Glad you got your muse back!
February 8th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Learning more about your own health is probably a wise move, Dee … but don’t let it take over your life. Don’t want to turn into one of those people where if someone asks how you are … you actually tell ‘em - in great detail.