Writing is waiting; waiting for inspiration, waiting for your computer screen to unfreeze, waiting for the correct word to fall into place, and waiting to hear back for edits. Each stage is excruciating, and several stages put your computer's safety at risk. My approach to this test of patience is to move on and the best way is to start something new. I'll even resort to paper and pen when my computer doesn't respond to the technological equivalent of Tylenol in the ctrl, alt, delete remedy.
In a way, starting a new story before finishing an old one feels like I'm being unfaithful. I start off feeling a bit of a thrill hitting the new document icon and then really guilty as I skip over the old folder in favor of the new one. But then, something happens. Like a cheating family man I suddenly start paying more attention to my wife, bringing her flowers and taking her out to dinner. It starts out as guilt attention, a few edits here, a few edits there, but then suddenly I realize what I saw in that first story and I go back to it with renewed vigor. Sometimes that second story becomes something, but most of the time it's just a document floating on the screen.
I used to think of that side-writing as a waste of time and creative energy. But now I've come to realize that it is just part of the process of finding my direction. Sometimes I need to step away from the path in order to see the landscape. I need to leave the daily project, physically and mentally, in order to come back to it as returning provokes more passion than just continuing along. In that vein, I guess you could say this blog is my bit on the side.
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