Home Again

I am back home, sitting at Tryst, with all the motivation and excitement that the fall brings. I swear the ingrained patterns of starting school every September still leave me in such a state of organization and determination.

Of course, I have been home exactly two days, am coming home to a novel that was totally stalled when I left, an article for Ride to edit asap, two technological writing pieces to do for Argonne National Labs, an overflowing e-mail inbox, and a whole host of other things to follow up on. We'll see how long this so-called organization lasts.

That having been said, it's the novel that's hanging over my head the most. Having taken a six-week break, it's time to get a move-on. Especially when I was feeling fairly blocked six weeks ago. I need all the cliched writing tricks to get me going. Do some exercises. Force myself just to sit down at the computer. Set a timer and promise myself I'll work for a solid hour before turning on my e-mail. I have pulled out my copy of Writing Down the Bones, and am looking at some exercises to get my juices flowing. Am being reminded about powerful verbs, bad first drafts, scrawling across a large notebook without lifting your pen. . . but most of all I am thankful for a sentence she has in her introduction: "Every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before."

How have I managed to do it before??