DISTRACTIONS!!!!!!! AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!! I HATE THEM!!!!!! I'm trying to get back into my writing once again after putting it on hold for a short period because of......life! Does anyone else relate and get really frustrated when life simply gets in the way? It's so annoying and so down putting. I need to get that 'spark' back to boom ahead with my imaginative creative writing and i'm really frustrated. Being both roles of mum and dad to the kids, i've had some serious trouble with them down their school and just before the break up for the hols I almost had a breakdown because of it, that's how bad it was. So i've moved my kids school and I've been really 'flat'. When they broke up for summer I literally needed two full days of doing NOTHING to recover and get myself a little back on track. Having bipolar, I don't have an appt to see my nurse until end next week, which I really need, but she is off until then, so I am stuck until then. I'm hoping I can get the short course of anti d's that I need to pick me up properly, but I'm keen to get back to my writing asap, but I've just lost that 'excitement', if you know that feeling and what i mean? I keep looking at my work, hoping that it will flood back to me.
Maybe you need to write something else? Can't say I have any experience with what you've gone through - but it sounds like you're probably in a very different emotional state compared to when you wrote whatever it is that you're working on. So, what gives you the "spark" now? Is it different emotions - can those go at a different plot point later in your story? If your entire story isn't working - maybe do another piece (maybe a short one) that more reflects how you feel now - darker and grittier maybe? Granted I'm just throwing stuff out here and you might have entirely different things giving you sparks - but find something that works rather than working what you have. I know I have a scene that I wrote during a week when I was really really angry at something that happened to a loved one and pretty much seething 24-7. I ended up using that to jump into my psychotic villain's head (which I never do - it's dark and scary in there), and wrote a scene where she pretty much verbally rips my heroine to shreds with a half-page rant using almost every obscenity in the book. Of course, my critique group hated it and it needs some serious editing - but I'm going to keep a lot of the basic verbiage because the sheer horrifying vulgarity is so powerful that I want to keep the effect. Probably could not have written that had I not been in a pretty messed up emotional state myself at the time.
Although I don't have bipolar, I can understand. My writing took a back seat to real life for a couple of decades because of real life issues - two kids with developmental disabilities (and all the planning and advocacy that entails), dealing with aging in-laws who refused to cooperate, trying to manage a demanding career while my wife managed an emotionally draining one (she teaches children with autism, and she's so good at it because we live with it). There were times when just the dream of one day writing was all I had to hold on to. I've come to the conclusion that making time for writing while life swirls around us is just part of the deal, and working through those life issues can make us better writers. I hope things settle down for you soon, @staceylouise.
Prose, or Prozac? People with problems make the best writers. Some great writers of past, were great because of things most people don't understand, or want to talk about: If these writers had Prozac, the world would have missed what these greats had to offer: J.D Salinger. Author: "The Catcher in the Rye." He had more neuroses than they had names for. Silvia Plath. Author: "The Bell Jar." Bipolar...several breakdowns. Ernest Hemingway. Author: "The Old Man and the Sea." Suicide 1961." His problems started in Italy at the age of 19. Franz Kafka. Author: One of the most neurotic writers of all time. "The Trial and the Castle" Me? I'm a great writer too...so I guess that tells you about what roams around inside my skin. My suggestion? Pick up the book your parents told you to never write again...there has to be a best seller in that. Make your character Bipolar...half the women in the U.S.A. are Bipolar...you'd have a best seller....Here is a name for your book: "My Best Friend, Bipolar and Me." Fill it with real events, and humor. You can write this. Do it.
