A Season for Something Else

One a scale of 1-10, parts of the year 2023 were a minus 6.

We saw family, we traveled, the kids grew older, the grandkids grew more wonderful, and the truck did not break down..

I was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

Which was distracting! Waiting, tests, results, waiting, surgery, waiting, more tests, radiation. Finally, I am on a treatment break – once they stopped fixing me it feels great!

But somewhere in that emotional chaos, I completely lost any interest or ability to write. I have been writing since I was in my 30’s, but in the last 6 months…nothing. No ideas sounded any good. No clever turns of phrase of even bad puns seems worth committing to paper.

So, as we wrap up 2023 (yippee!), I offer some thoughts on what to do when there is too much life to be creative.

1  Continue Learning

I could not travel but I signed up for every single online class – mostly free, but even paid for few – watch and rewatched the videos, getting every bit of learning I could. I went to marketing classes, classes for teachers, how to work with social media, latest trends in publishing, changes in the industry.

2  Keep Engaging

I followed new bloggers on FB and IG. I committed to comment on at least 4 posts each week. I bought a subscription to PW and watched for award winning books from friends. I stayed active in my critique and author support groups and joined a new one.

3  Edit Old Stuff

Time to drag out the “well there are too many dog books on the market right now” stories and see if one could get a new life. I looked over old lists of ideas. I tweaked a board book rhyme from years ago and submitted it to a contest where it placed in the top 10!

4  Support Others

I spent the month of December promoting all the books from my support and critique group members on FB, IG and X. To do it I researched any commemorative dates from one of the lists of something for every day and an amazing number of celebrations matched what my friends had written! Then I made a template on Canva and posted daily.

5  Build for the future

In the hope that some writing ability/interest will come back, I updated all my proposal outlines with new comp titles and connections, continued posting on FB and IG, chose new groups to join in 2024.

We go through slumps and dry spells – hoping you keep writing and 2024 will be your best year yet!

Multi award winning author Robin Currie learned story sharing by sitting on the floor, in library story times. She has sold 1.7 M copies of her 40 storybooks and (hopes eventually to) write stories to read and read again!