Over the weekend I came down with a bad case of cramps. Writer’s cramps. Brain cramps. Words got stuck, no matter what I tried. Then, I remembered a blog post I’d read just that week. Derek Doepker, an expert on ebook marketing who has become my guru (even though he doesn’t know it), wrote about doing nothing. Not sitting and staring at a screen, fingers seizing in spasms when words refused to flow. He counseled taking five minutes and doing ab.so.lute.ly nothing. Since I had reached the point of ultimate frustration and wanted to throw my keyboard into the lake, I simply sat and stared at the screen. I turned off the monitor and let the blankness calm my mind.

Now, you’re going to say this is the same as meditating. It is. Meditating works, especially when walking. Alas, I twinged my lower back and find walking as painful as trying to break through the mental cramps. After five minutes, I swiveled my chair, looked around my workspace, and found something I could do which would be productive.

I decided to perform an archaeological dig on my worktable. Piles of crap everywhere. No organization. No way to figure out what needed attention. I piled everything on the floor willy-nilly. I picked up a small pile or part of a pile, dealt with every paper or envelope, tossed and sorted. The more I moved through the crap, the better I felt.

As a list maker, I need a to-do list to keep me focused. I now have a simple list, or a Post-it, on each vastly de-crapped pile.

And I know what comes next in my novel. Whew! Off to the recycler with a box of paper…

Signing off for now,
Buckshot Betsy

P.S. I have a collection of stories, essays, and poems coming out soon. No, you don’t know about it. Well, now, you do. More on that in my next newsletter.

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