I can’t believe I’m about to say this. It’s about as uncharacteristic as me chugging a Diet Pepsi (ugh – Diet Coke all the baby, people). But say it, I will:
I’m ready for cooler weather.
Fellow Iowans and long-time friends, you can raise your eyebrows high as you want, drop your jaw, smirk, pick your “Did Melissa really just say that?” expression of choice. I don’t mind.
But it’s true. I’m ready for Mr. Temperature to take it down a couple notches.
I don’t know maybe I’m just tired of summer clothes. Bring on the pretty scarves and stylin’ boots. Or perhaps for once I’d like to step outside without humidity doing an Annie number on my hair. Or maybe I’m craving that old “back-to-school” feeling I used to get come mid-August when – amidst my new school supplies and backpack and first-day-of-school outfit – I’d sense change and excitement. (Okay, so that feeling really only lasted through elementary school. By junior high my new trapper keeper just didn’t do it anymore.)
Anyhow, this longing for a change in the weather isn’t all that new to me. In fact, it’s ailing me right at its usual onset. I call it my “summer rut.” Always hits around this time. Thankfully, for the past few summers I’ve discovered handy cures. A few summers ago, I took up painting. Last summer, a couple friends and I made a late August weekend getaway to Colorado – tubed down a mountain river. Came away from it with bruises and sunburns – so bad that you could’ve paint STOP in white on my face and planted me on street corner – but what a blast!
I hit ruts in my writing, too. Points where I’m bored with my characters or convinced my plot stinks or can’t seem to put two intelligent sentences together. Sometimes I think it’s just laziness. And I’m not talking about writer’s block here. This is something different – more of a sluggish writer state, like the pull of the Lethargarians in The Phantom Tollbooth’s doldrums.
Some rut-busting tricks? Here are a few things that work for me:
-Finding a new place to write. A change in scenery can make all the difference. Especially if that new place includes a mocha.
-Fast-forwarding to a new place in your plot. Generally I’m a chronological writer. But sometimes thinking ahead to a scene I can’t wait to write – and then writing it – gives me the boost I need to plunk away at earlier scenes.
-Read a favorite book. When I can’t seem to make my story work for me, I check out a story which worked out for someone else. A little Susan May Warren or Ted Dekker or Jenny B. Jones or Ann Tatlock, and I’m eventually back in the game.
And sometimes, well, my very best climbs out of the doldrums are the slow and steady kind…which consist of a lot of wall-staring and mindless snacking and talking to myself as I just force myself through it.
So how about you? Every find yourself in a writing rut? What pulls you out?
