Back to Basics

I decided that the best way to get back into the mind set of writing was to … well, write, of course … but not just any writing.

So many things have been turned upside down these last few weeks. First, finding someplace to live, then packing a house full of stuff, weeding out about a third of my library (sniffle), and then moving and settling into our new home …

It’s no wonder that my mind can’t focus.

Of course, I let the marketing/promotion side of things slide in the last couple of weeks leading up to the move. (Why drum up more work just in time for me not to be able to find my computer, much less someplace quiet to write?) So, at the moment, I don’t have any paying clients. That’s good and bad. Bad because I could really use a paying client or three right now to offset moving costs, but good because it’s giving me the breathing space to find my writer’s footing again.

The best place for that?

Going back to the beginning.

As much as I love writing marketing pieces, doing copywriting, webpages, and other elements of the copywriting business, the first thing I ever wanted to write was a BOOK. When I was about eight, I wrote and laboriously typed a story scandalously plagarized from Julie Andrews’ “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.” (Luckily, I never tried to sell the book since the plot was remarkably similar, though much, much shorter.) But I did have it “privately” published … which is to say, my Dad brought it to work and photocopied it for me, folded it in half and stapled it together with the construction paper cover I drew for it.

And yes, I still have it.

In terms of more serious writing, though, my first love was fiction. Not poetry, not short stories, but full-blown novels.

So, the other day, I found my first few footsteps back toward “real” writing by working on my ongoing novel. I only got a couple pages written, but still … sitting at my computer, typing words into meaningful sentences. Writing progress is being made. Mental space for writing is being staked out.

I’ll give my brain a couple days to revel in the fiction, but then the vacation’s over and it’s back to work. I’m just grateful to finally see a path in the woods.