Hello, friends! Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. from blogging lately. I’ve been suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. Or, to say that another way, my muse has been withholding ideas from me. Why would my muse do such a thing? I’ll let her explain.
Stress isn’t always bad. Psychologists draw a distinction between good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress). If you feel like you’re stretching your limits, if you’re stepping out of your comfort zone, if you’re confident that you can prevail against the challenges in front of you—that’s the good kind of stress. But if you feel like something’s snapped, like you’re totally overwhelmed and can’t cope with it all—that is the bad kind of stress.
For me, writing is the good kind of stress, always. But in these distressful, COVID-ful times, writing has not made things better. I always assumed good stress and bad stress would cancel each other out, but maybe it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s more like multiplying a positive with a negative—you just end up with a bigger negative.
And so my muse—the magical fairy person who’s supposed to make me do my writing—made me take a break from writing. It was for my own good. I needed the rest—some properly lazy and self-indulgent rest.
Now that I’ve had that period of rest, I’m going to try to get back to my regular writing and blogging routine. No guarantees, though. We’ll see how things go.
P.S.: My muse did help me write this blog post. That has to be a good sign, right?
Planet Pailly 
Blogging should never be stressful.
No idea what to write? No blog. Simple. We can wait.
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That’s a good rule to follow!
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I feel your pain – literally. I’m organizing ideas for my next book, and I’ve got a couple yawning chasms that somehow need to be filled… bridged? Whatever. Once the dam breaks, (oh my, another metaphor) I’ll be able to start writing, and so will you. Your muse won’t abandon you.
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Yeah, I have a few yawning chasms in the next TNN novella. But yesterday, I started working on that again, and I think one problem may have been solved. So, you know… the wheels are starting to turn again.
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I agree that you shouldn’t worry about dry spells, particularly if you’re stressed. We’ll be here when you’re ready.
That said, something that helped me out of my blogging winter was simply relaxing how good an idea had to be before I started writing. It led to some stillborn posts, but it also led to more published posts.
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I’m kind of the same. For me, I think I need to just see where my research leads. I have the most fun with this blog when I’m researching one thing and stumble upon information about something else. I’m hoping I can do more of that in the coming weeks and months.
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