Maybe you need a vacation...

Or at least a rest!

Last week, we were talking about reasons for the inability to write that sometimes hits us. I mentioned that the week before I'd written 30 pages, but I hated them and didn't know why. My husband had retired that week, so we packed up the SUV and headed for his sister's house for a little R&R and to celebrate his retirement.

Anyway, if you read that week's blog you know that I left my suck-o pages behind because, frankly, I could not figure out what was wrong with them. But after a day of golfing and dinner out, I slept like a baby and dreamed that I'd left out some information. What I had as chapter 2 needed to be chapter 3...and the new chapter 2 should contain the info I'd left out.

I woke up, set up my laptop and wrote out the new chapter and it worked.

Truthfully, I wasn't surprised that a little bit of rest awakened my subconscious and gave me the answer as easy as pie.

Writers are some of the hardest working people I know. Most of us have day jobs before we're published and even after we're published to keep insurance! So we're working 8 hours a day, taking care of kids/a household, then writing for the hours before bedtime. Or, maybe you're getting up at four so you can write until six...and then go to work.

I did that for at least fifteen years. And I noticed 2 things. I was much thinner =:) and it took me longer to write a book.

We could suggest the extra weeks needed for each book was the result of having limited time to write. But I think there was another buggaboo at play. No rest. No time off. I worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.

Everybody needs a rest. Even God commanded (not suggested) that we take one day a week off. Yet most of us who are writing and working and raising kids, don't feel we have that luxury.

But is it really a luxury? If taking a day off every now and again refills your creative well, maybe it's not so much of a luxury as we think.

Maybe it really is a necessity.

And maybe you should set aside a day to rest. Play with your kids (or your dog), go out to dinner with your DH (or DW), sit by a pool, go shopping (even if it's just window shopping), see a movie.

Rest. Rest your brain. Refill the well.

susan

PS...Almost forgot! Thanks to those of you who are buying A BABY ON THE RANCH. [My bank thanks you too.] It's pure joy to see any book do well, but this book is extremely special to me. It's one of my all-time favorites. To see it doing well...well, it makes my heart smile.

And thanks, too, to those wonderful people who have read the book and emailed to tell me they loved it. I <3 you!

At home, writing four hours every morning and teaching or writing workshops most afternoons, I have to tell you, it can sometimes feel that I write to a great void. So when you email to tell me you loved the book ... you more than make me :).

Thanks bunches!

susan