Empty rooms, empty hours
The office reflects my life and when I'm nose deep in projects, papers languish in piles everywhere. I dislike the piles, yet they feed my work. When projects wrap up, and almost without thought, the piles begin dwindling and disappear. I go through notes and papers tossing as I go, file the now slender folders away to be tossed after a few months.
For several months though I've been too busy to throw out old notes and file away completed projects. Not a complaint; I enjoy having lots to write about.
Yet it sure would be nice to dream away the hours working on the novel. My next steps are to map out the plot. Where the characters will go and how. That's always the hardest part for me. I know who my people are, I understand their personal conflicts and dynamics that bring them together. I just don't have enough for them to do.
That's how it is sometimes as a writer, too. When work slows, I overhaul the office and clear out the papers. With everything at last settled around me, and lots of space for reverie, I can linger in quiet thought, imagining people and how they will behave. At the same time, I can find that eking out words goes slowly. I drain myself to write and it's not even 100 words.
When it comes to writing, like my characters, sometimes I just don't have anything to do.
