Getting to work…?

So I finally sit down to write. In the midst of all my recent insecurities, I know it’s going to be tough. I’ve come to believe these insecurities are like buyer’s remorse, only I’m having it vicariously for my publisher. I tell myself it’s only a feeling, perhaps made worse by some spiritual warfare going on. Yes, I actually believe my little world gets noticed by those on the other side, spiritually speaking. Obviously, though, God wants this series written otherwise it wouldn’t have sold. My job is to be obedient. So I sit down to write…

Besides, it’s not like I’m starting with a blank Page One. I’m not a widely successful author who can sell a story on my name alone or just on an idea. Okay, the last book of the series is sold on an idea, but it’s part of a package. The first two books are very well plotted, and the first three chapters of this book are even written. I need to find something to inspire me—tap into that mysterious and sometimes elusive “fountain of inspiration” or muse as some people call it. It’s something you can’t buy, but it usually isn’t far away.

I have two ways of hoping to regain passion for writing, and I was reminded of one this morning on my walk with the dog. I passed a house where someone had, in lovely chalk colors, drawn a Chicago landscape. Tall buildings in multiple colors all nestled close, a blue Lake Michigan, even a black Sears tower with its two antennae. Before coming to that driveway I was just walking along, but by the time I’d passed by I was smiling. That drawing had changed me, even for a minute. After having seen it I was smiling, where before I’d just been walking along.

A good book can do that to me, too—any well written book, actually. Good writing inspires me. It makes me say: “Hey, I want to do that! I want to write something that’ll stir an emotion in someone else. Put a smile on their face.”

So reading is one way to regain excitement about writing.

Another way, and this may sound narcissistic, but my own writing can sometimes inspire me. I don’t read books of my own once they’ve been published, but if I can pick up my work-in-progress and get a glimpse of the excitement I had when first envisioning this project, then I might get inspired again.

So I revisit those first three chapters, written when my passion was fresh. And guess what? Even though the first chapter is probably the one that gets rewritten and polished the most, even in its present state I think I’m not the complete failure I believed myself to be before sitting down.

But the characters are still unknown to me—their future murky. I need to do more research. Research, at least for historical lovers like me, is heavenly fodder. There are ideas galore to be found in history books and all I have to do is tap into them.

Wait a minute, you say. Research? Didn’t I just say this book is plotted? Well, for me novels with historical settings come alive in the details. That’s what I’m after now—not the big pieces of the puzzle, but the daily things that’ll reveal my characters in subtle ways.

So I spend the day reading. Not writing. Not moving forward on the actual page count. Page count? Please. I haven’t added a single word.

And I don’t write a word for a whole week.

Um . . . deadline alert. I can’t just research my time away. At some point I have to actually write the book.

What kind of idiot was I, convincing anyone else I could write a book?

So the ups and the downs aren’t over. Are they ever?