The Sweet Escape

I have strangely found myself singing a song by Gwen Stefani lately. I’ve never been a huge fan of hers, but I do have to say that her song” The Sweet Escape” has class. I’ve even picked it as my current song on my Myspace page.

I think that the first part of the chorus is what calls out to my soul as a writer. “If I could escape, and recreate a place that’s my own world, and I could be your favorite girl forever, perfectly together, now tell me boy now wouldn’t that be sweet?”

What writer doesn’t strive to do this on a daily basis? We are constantly working to recreate our world as we know it through the power of our pens and minds. Each and every article or story is a sweet escape that we love. Of course some of those escapes are better than others, but what a great job we have! My mom used to tell me that I spent too much time with my head in the clouds. Maybe so, but just look where I am today!

I feel fortunate to be able to live my dream of writing for a living. If every assignment isn’t a dream, then the next one may be. It’s at least worth my time to hope and create my life as a writer. Not everyone gets to do what I do and I can truly say it’s like a dream come true. I am grateful to have my sweet escape.

Trudging Through The Sludge

I recently hit a brick wall with my writing. I hit it hard and fast and boy did it knock me for a loop! It came about because of a couple of things going on in my life and unfortunately it overlapped into my work. I was just barely managing and then I began working on a difficult assignment. It started out fairly easy and then complete chaos took over.

I won’t mention what happened except to say that I spent many sleepless nights trying to work on this project. I spent all day. I spent all night. I didn’t get very far. My confidence in my writing abilities plummeted and I fell into a deep and dark abyss of writer despair. Suffice it to say it was horrible.

Shortly thereafter I took a relatively fun project on and thought everything would be ok. But to my surprise and despair, I still felt like I was trudging through a deep and thick sludge that wasn’t ever going to leave. What is a writer to do? Working through it wasn’t helping.

A writer friend and mentor suggested I take a day off. I decided to follow her advice. I played hooky from all of my responsibilities yesterday. It was wonderful! I feel refreshed and renewed. I am able to write again. I’m going to take the weekend off from my work responsibilities and start next week off with a renewed vigor. Sometimes a little break from life is good for the mind and the soul.