Sunday, August 12, 2012

Slumps & Bumps

I have been in a slump and have not worked on my WIP for several months.
I'm the lead gardener for a 100-share CSA. Planting, weeding and watering a 4-acre organic garden takes a lot of hours. So does training a new crew. Unprecedented heat and humidity, the demise of an essential pathway rotary mower, and two nasty passive-aggressive workers added to my stress.
In my other business, my daughter-in-law is on maternity leave (baby Tysen is cute but fussy), so after gardening, I go in and answer messages, ship orders, order ingredients and supplies.
I've been too tired to do much more than fall into bed in the evenings. Definitely too brain dead to edit my WIP. But I'm coming back to life.
We're doing more maintaining and harvesting in the garden. Reaping what we've sown. And it's a good harvest, if you forgive that we walked away from a big, too-weedy bed of carrots and mow the paths between the tomatoes.
It's cooler. The women I hired to replace the nasty couple (who quit and drove off in the middle of one night) are 180-degrees more pleasant and fun to work around. I have the watt power to do some critiquing, and that's easing me back into the writing mode.
I can feel the energy and confidence returning to open my WIP file and finish incorporating Chapter 14 suggestions. Then move forward. Get the manuscript polished and send it off.
I can see the end of the slump.
Someday I'll be able to look back and view it as a bump.
With the bonus that I gained more life experience and some future character profiles.




3 comments:

  1. I'm in awe of all the work you do, Ana. It's not surprising that you are too tired to write. But hopefully things will ease off for you soon, and you'll return to your book with renewed enegy and enthusiasm!

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  2. Ana,

    You are one busy lady. Glad things seem to be settling down in the gardening world.

    It's always fun to get excited about writing again if you've been away for a while. Good luck!

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  3. That's great that you're getting back to your writing. I've found that breaks are really helpful for getting my writing desire back. And I've started to feel less guilty about taking them too.

    I hate weeds, but I love the idea of gardening (notice I said, "idea"). I plan flowers every spring, but barely get around to weeding my front bed (forget about the sides of the house, who sees them?) and planting a few pots. Someday!

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