Investing in my Creativity

My creative streak has been on strike. You know that feeling when you think “I’m a writer! I should have great ideas!” Well, it’s been fleeting the past few years, drifting in and out in fits of brilliance (which are really quite mediocre) and making me long for the days when I dreamt about my characters and day dreamed plot lines.

In an attempt to kindle my creative genius, I have made myself some goals at the beginning of the summer. I have been listening to some creative writing podcasts since the beginning of the year and was ready to make myself buckle down and write. Goals went like this:

1. Using the writing prompt from my podcast write something every week.
2. Starting in September, outline a novel for Nanowrimo
3. Starting in October, research my novel for Nanowrimo
4. In November, write my novel
5. Starting in December, revise and rewrite my novel

So far, so good. I have been writing twice a week and started using this blog to keep me accountable. It’s hard to track progress if you can’t have a timeline. In September, I started a huge spreadsheet that has the plan for my novel and did a basic plot outline. Now, I am in the middle of fleshing it out, filling in details and crafting my characters.

By far, this is the most pre-prep work I have EVER done writing anything. I have my characters and setting almost fully fleshed, I have a detailed plot outline with every scene beginning middle and end, it looks like I will have 26 decently long chapters in first draft. I like my character, I am beginning to crave putting fingers to keyboard and diving into this thing! Only 16 days left!

Finally I feel like my brain is starting to think like a writer again. This novel is not the most ingenious plot line ever, no it doesn’t have any crazy twists or something so completely out there. This is me, sitting down and just dropping something back into my bank of creativity. I need to invest in my writing ability and work on crafting a great story. I can always revise in the crazy twists and strange attractors. Right now, I’m starting to feel like I’m getting in the groove of writing, I’ve been focused and determined.

I think, I am willing once more to call myself a writer.