Renewal

Isn't it interesting how different seasons of the year become a time of renewal?  For me, September is my time of greatest renewal.  Perhaps it was because I loved school and in those days school started the day after Labor Day.

I love the smell of paper and pencils, of glue and erasers. To me, these are the tools of creativity and when they are brand new, their potential is limitless.

Whenever I get stuck on something, I find a way to renew myself.  Sometimes, a project that takes longer than expected can feel old, musty, overworked, sometimes even useless.  However, most of the time I can't really afford to just toss it in the trash can.  I have to figure out a way to renew the project so that it feels new, so that I can recapture that feeling of excitement that got me started on it in the first place.

Recently, I have been working on a book with a doctor in Australia. Initially, we expected the book to only take us two months to write. At first, we made significant progress.  Then, as we ran into some roadblocks, one or the other of us had to attend to other matters, and the book began to languish.

In order to refocus and reinvigorate myself for the project, I decided to just change the formatting of the book, putting it into a book template so that I could see what it might look like in its final form.  Just seeing the book in that way changed my feeling about the project significantly.  Once again I felt that old enthusiasm for the project begin to bubble up.  The audience was one step closer to getting information that would ease their suffering.

Taking time to renew can mean the difference between life and death of a project.

What do you do to renew yourself?

To your writing success,

Kathleen