The Summer of Intuition

Hello friends,

The summer doldrums have arrived. Everything feels slow, including me. This past week officially marked the beginning of too-hot-to-think weather, and yet…I have to think. At least some of the time.

I got to the very end of the Una and Varrie book, and then my brain just…crapped out on it. I don’t want to work on it. Something about the outline for the ending has me unsatisfied, and I’m not sure what it is—because on paper, it sounds fine. It just doesn’t FEEL right. I’m not even sure what thread to pick at yet.

This is a common feeling for many of you, I’m sure! Some books flow easily, while others present road blocks that seem to loom out of nowhere, like cruising down a highway, turning a curve and hitting a massive traffic jam. For hours, you can’t even see the end to know what’s going on.

In the past, I would have just powered through. You know, I do have an ending and it would probably be good enough. I think readers would be happy with it and might never know I struggled. And sometimes, in fact, you do just have to power through, even to learn what’s wrong. This is especially true when you haven’t seen many projects through.

But in this case, my instincts are telling me I need a break from this story, and I should take one…because I can. For many years, I didn’t have that luxury. I needed to make money and hit my deadlines. You just get it as good as you can by the deadline, and if you were never happy with it? Well, you try not to think about it.

In my most recent members-only video, I talked about how lately my moods are very random, yet distinct. The old familiar pattern of my menstrual cycle is gone, replaced with chaos. One day I just want to read, the next two days I’m an organizing fiend, a week later I wouldn’t clean for a thousand dollars because I’m writing for two weeks straight, and then suddenly I have no energy for much of anything…for an entire month. As someone who has always made myself plans and deadlines and generally met them, this is driving me bonkers. I can’t seem to MAKE myself do what needs to be done anymore. It’ll all get done in good time, my subconscious seems to be saying. Just trust me. Go with the flow.

Go with the flow? That’s not the Capricorn way! I have a WORK SCHEDULE, damnit!

Well, you can probably feel where that’s going. That’s probably the exact behavior I need to let go of. I can kick and scream my way through midlife, or I can try to listen to what my instincts are telling me. This is a transformation.

Remember when you were a kid? You probably followed your whims about what to create and learn and do a lot more often. Maybe I’m supposed to get back in touch with that. If this book doesn’t come out for many months, so be it. It’ll come out one way or another. In the meantime, I’m thinking about Tashaya and Atorra and the rest of the Dragon Kingdom gang I left stranded back in the 1890s. I’m excited to get back to the exploits of Alfred and Livonya. I have no end of stories to write, so why force myself to write any given one on any given day? And taking a day or even a week off to read over the summer won’t kill me either. As a kid I did it all the time, and it was often followed by an explosion of creativity.

Of course, I still have obligations, but I’m going to try not to create false obligations on top of the real ones. I’m going to try to have a summer following my intuition instead of locking her in a mental dungeon. (Ooh, that’s such a brutal metaphor…did I really go that far? Sometimes I’m afraid it’s true.) Wish me luck, and if you’ve been stressing yourself by creating extra deadlines for yourself, consider this permission to stop.

-Lidiya