book « Robin Writes

Yes, it’s real. Yes, we all get it from time to time. It can strike at any moment, and last for hours, weeks, or even (gasp) months.

But.

It does not make you a bad person or even a bad writer. You can start and stop, in spite of what some “experts” say, whenever you want. However, the longer you wait to start again, the harder it could become.

How do you cure it?

That depends on the kind of writing you’re doing. If you’re stuck for ideas, surf the Web. Read a book, preferably not in your genre—don’t want to plagiarize after all, or even come close. Read some blogs. Get up and do something physical, whether it’s exercise or cleaning the house or running errands. Let your subconscious do the work for a while.

For myself, I skip to the end of the manuscript and write the ending. That way, at least, I’ll know where I’m going with the rest of the book. Once, I got a little carried away and after I wrote the epi, I did “Last Chapter,” and then “Second to Last Chapter,” and about halfway through the “Third to Last Chapter,” I got a grip on myself and went back to the beginning.

Have to say, I’ve never heard of writing an entire book backwards!

Sometimes, though, the words just won’t come. You’re stuck. You’re dead in the water. Then what?

Write something. A grocery list. A packing list. A chore list. A long status update or comment on social media. Or a blog post.

You have to. You’re a writer, and if you don’t write something, you lose your momentum. Something, anything with words. The ideas, the write order of the words, those will come eventually, as long as you keep doing some kind of writing.

We went camping this weekend, our annual freeze-our-butts-off trip. And of course, we’ll be doing a lot of camping this summer at our new farm, out of necessity while we work on the place.

How do you camp?

I realize that can be a complicated question, so I’ll go first:

I like to camp in a tent and do all the cooking over the fire; I like to build the fire from scratch. I even do the dishes over the fire. I can handle skipping a shower. Maybe two. Maybe.

Do I make concessions to civilization? Yep.

I take my iPhone and a solar charger; I do some of the food prep before we head out to the campground. And I bring my own port-a-potty with its own tent. J

Some of my friends who come camping will happily do all the traditional things, but they also prefer an RV for its beds and bathroom, particularly the shower. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take advantage of the bathroom at least once, and I even plugged in my phone when my charger went kaput.

And by Sunday, I was done doing the dishes over the fire—they went into the truck to be washed at home.

So how do you camp?

It should be really interesting when we start making improvements to the farm and “living” out there for a few days or so at a time. There’s a well, of course, and electric up at the house and barn but not at the campsite we’ll build first.

The first weekends will be the most like our normal camping, as we build an outhouse and shower house, and then a kitchen shelter—after that, all the camping gear will stay there. And we just set up a new playpen for Kura, so she can watch us and not feel left out, but most importantly, so we don’t have to try to work while hanging to a hyper little dog!