Waiting to Exhale

When it feels good to sit in front of a computer in your office chair you know you've been working to hard. This is me at the moment. My office chair is a little slice of heaven to my sore aching back.
But life can be like this at times and these are the times when you suck it up and keep going until the job is done.

Even if your life is swirling around you like a hurricane and you are in the eye of the storm it is still important to take a moment to relax and exhale. How you exhale is up to you but for me at this point in time the moment to exhale is right now - in this office chair writing this post. Do I have the time to write this....not really but the storm of life can wait for a moment as I catch my breath.

It is important that we are productive in life but it is equally important that we take time to enjoy that productivity.

View from my Window...

This is what I'm looking at right now. Lovely, eh? Sometimes when I'm at home writing poetry or working on my WIP, or taking care of chores, kids or responsibilities, I think of the lake house just sitting and waiting for me to visit. Sadly, I've only gotten to come here about four times in the last two years...and it's less than an hour from home. We were entertaining friends from Scotland, so we came to enjoy the water and beauty of nature away from the city.

Even though I haven't escaped here often lately, it's nice just having this "happy place" to go to in my mind when I need escape or inspiration.

Where do you go physically and/or mentally to get out of your rut?

A Little Bird Told Me...

I may spend too long on Twitter. It is undeniably helping me as a writer as I have 'met' so many industry professionals but most of them are in America. I'm in England. Some days I think I'm doing very valuable research but other days I think:

'Get off Twitter and do some writing you oaf!'

Inspirational Invitation

I think I'm going to try writing longhand today. At this point, it can't hurt, and putting pen to paper sometimes jump starts and/or unlocks the creativity with poetry...so I'll see where it takes me with prose.

The invitation is also extended to you.

Delicate Dreams

Death. Illness. Loss. Poverty. Rejection. How can my dreams fly over these and take me somewhere where pain is only in the memories? I'm tired of fighting. I want to curl up in bed. I want to give in, sign the paperwork that says I'm disabled. Stop fighting it off. Stop trying to become something else. But I can't. I can't give in. I can't let go of my dreams and they won't let go of me. Failure I can handle. Pain I can handle. Regret though? Never.

When Life Threatens to Swamp the WIP...

...how do you get around (or through) it to make progress?

One of the hardest things for me is finding concentrated amounts of time to focus on my manuscript. Mostly I just have small slices consisting of an hour or two, which is not conducive to really getting into a good flowing writing zone.

Thankfully, I can work on poetry, do marketing and agent research or other small projects, but when weeks and months go by and I haven't moved past chapter 10 in revisions, the frustration mounts. Would love to hear how y'all handle this if it happens to you.

[Somebody please let me know if we're not supposed to post like this.]

*Photo from Photobucket.com

Flicker of Inspiration

J Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons. I measure out my novels in coffee candles. Tomorrow I will light this candle. One or two candles later a novel will materialise. I bought the chap in the background when I was a teenager. His body is so strong but his posture is so vulnerable. I keep him in my writing space to remind me of the strength and vulnerability of my heroes when I write. It is a fortunate happenstance that the man I married looks just like him. :)

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The Works In Progress is a blog written by writers-who-write-for-writers. It is a place away from our writing communities where we can write about our own works in progress and you are very welcome to eavesdrop!