Panic! But In A Good Way!

20 Jul Panic! But In A Good Way!

I’ve written 10,000 words or so in the past 4 days.

That’s a pretty solid run for me and yeah, I’m bragging a little bit. I’m also writing out of fear and I want to talk a little bit about that.

When I wrote my first novel, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing and inspiration kind of happened in the moment. All well and good. With my second novel I was in a groove but I had to stop on occasion to deal with lulls. That happens, too.

Then I hit a period where I wasn’t writing anything. I was still thinking about writing and still wanting to, but time and, to be frank, motivation got in the way. There was always something else to prioritize and I went about six months without writing. Not good, so I reworked some habits and made writing part of the routine.

Then, a couple days ago (in a Barnes & Noble store, none the less), inspiration struck.

When we got home I spent an hour when I should have been hanging out with my wife feverishly taking notes. I’ve pulled over to the side of the road once to make a note on this story. I’ve gotten up early the past few days and taken every spare moment I could to write and I’m doing this out of fear.

I’m afraid the inspiration is going to go away.

I don’t want to make this sound spiritual at all. “Inspiration” in this case is nothing more than “I had an idea” and “I want to get it written” and, if I wanted to, I could work hard on one of the many ideas I’ve already had. What I think is happening is I’m riding a wave of productivity spurred on by really wanting to get something done and see how this story I’m writing will play out.

I’m sort of panicking because I don’t know how much longer my brain is going to allow me to go crazy like this and I’m curious if other writers have bursts of productivity like this. From what I’ve seen, everyone is different and some folks definitely report something like this happening.

I’m hopping that when I come out of this I can take some sort of wider lesson about how writing while also being a busy person works. Until then I’m going to post this, have a cup of coffee and get back to work.