Writer’s lull

For weeks and weeks, I was the whirling dervish of writing:

1. I had a few blogs going for which I posted several times a week.
2. I was writing 2000 words a day for my book.
3. I was writing book reviews for several websites.
4. I was writing restaurant reviews and food articles for an online magazine.
5. I was writing millions of words in emails to my friends and coworkers daily.

…and so on; you get the idea. I was wily and whimsical in my writing.

Then, an issue came up in relation to the education of one of my children and suddenly I found that much of my writing time was taken up with writing emails, letters, and synopses of events and phone conversations for many different involved parties, almost every day, including weekends, almost to the exclusion of all else. I was diligent and dutiful in my writing.

Now there is a lull in the education issue. I have reluctantly come to realize that there is now a lull in my writing activities as well. I have learned this: the more I write, the more I write. Unfortunately, the converse is also true: the less I write, the less I write. This writer’s lull is different from writer’s block. It’s not that I have no ideas about what to write. I have plenty of ideas;  I just can’t seem to get them out of my head and onto the page.

I was distressed. When I told a friend about this, she suggested that this is actually a period of renewal, a time to foster new ideas and thoughts that will fuel my next writing phase. She further suggested that this period of writing not-so-much is part of the process, and therefore is necessary and beneficial.

I’ve decided to go with it, on the chance that it might be true.

It feels true.