Hello Online World, it's me, Shannon Wixom. Yes, it's been eight months since my last blog entry. WTH? Quite simply, I needed a break. Like, a HUGE one. I needed to stop querying, entering contests and even writing for a while.
So I checked myself into writer's rehab. For me, it meant throwing myself into other therapeutic things. Like gardening. Man, I'm telling you, this year my yard looked amazing. Good thing too, because my sister got married in it in July!
How do you know when you should take a break or push through the difficult times? For me it was when I realized that I had completely lost all confidence in myself as writer. There was no joy in this thing that I thought I loved to do but felt like I royally sucked at.
When there is no joy in the craft, it's definitely time to take a break.
During my break I did a ridiculous amount of gardening (in my defense, my yard is almost half an acre). But I also focused on things I could control, like my health. I spent last winter and spring with chronic mono, then had major digestive issues all summer. So getting myself healthy was crucial to my rehabilitation process.
Over the summer I also reread several of my books and focused on things I actually liked about them. A clever sentence of dialogue or a beautiful description. Sometimes I even caught myself thinking, "Hey, I'm not such a bad writer," or "Wow, did I really write that?"
Most of us writers know exactly what our weaknesses are, but do we know our strengths too? I didn't until I reacquainted myself with my own writing.
As I tentatively navigate the battlefield of Queryland again, I will continue to remind myself of my strengths as well as seek to strengthen my weaknesses. So it's all about being strong. We writers are not a wussy bunch, that's for sure!
So I checked myself into writer's rehab. For me, it meant throwing myself into other therapeutic things. Like gardening. Man, I'm telling you, this year my yard looked amazing. Good thing too, because my sister got married in it in July!
How do you know when you should take a break or push through the difficult times? For me it was when I realized that I had completely lost all confidence in myself as writer. There was no joy in this thing that I thought I loved to do but felt like I royally sucked at.
When there is no joy in the craft, it's definitely time to take a break.
During my break I did a ridiculous amount of gardening (in my defense, my yard is almost half an acre). But I also focused on things I could control, like my health. I spent last winter and spring with chronic mono, then had major digestive issues all summer. So getting myself healthy was crucial to my rehabilitation process.
Over the summer I also reread several of my books and focused on things I actually liked about them. A clever sentence of dialogue or a beautiful description. Sometimes I even caught myself thinking, "Hey, I'm not such a bad writer," or "Wow, did I really write that?"
Most of us writers know exactly what our weaknesses are, but do we know our strengths too? I didn't until I reacquainted myself with my own writing.
As I tentatively navigate the battlefield of Queryland again, I will continue to remind myself of my strengths as well as seek to strengthen my weaknesses. So it's all about being strong. We writers are not a wussy bunch, that's for sure!
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