Creativity

 Maybe you’ve noticed this too.  When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid.  I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book.  God, I’ve missed fiction!

Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction.  I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well.  When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life.

Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found.  Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published.  Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic.

The vast majority, however, are unfinished.  Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I’m going with it to remind myself later.  If I don’t, I come back to some half-forgotten tale with no idea where I was heading with it.

In any case, the thing I’ve noticed—and I’ve noticed it before—is that my day-to-day life becomes much more creative when I write fiction.  I’m happier.  I think more clearly.  I can manage (slightly) to get through my nine-to-five job.  Fiction is real life.

I know I don’t have many readers out there, but I’m posting this as a word of encouragement.  Don’t give up!  I put aside fiction writing for a couple of years because I really needed to finish my latest nonfiction project.  It doesn’t have the sparkle that some of my earlier books do.

Writing is life itself.  Our world of trying to make money is not what it seems to be.  Fiction just makes sense.