The always-insightful Sarah Fine recently wrote a blog series on writer’s block–talking about her perspective of it and identifying the various causes and how to approach them. The last post in this series went live yesterday: Conquering Writer’s Block V: THE CYCLE OF DOOM. (This also links to previous posts. Well worth a read, as is the rest of her blog!)

She talks about three root causes of writer’s block, and I read along with interest, up until I reached the post above. At that point I went, “Crap.”

‘Cause it looks like I’m officially dealing with all three of those causes. Between moving, struggling with various plot and other concerns in current projects, and both those things resulting in the dreaded avoidance cycle, I am pretty well and truly screwed in the productivity department.

I’m trying not to beat myself up over it. For one, I did finally start editing something this weekend; for another, moving is a big deal, and once that’s over with, I’ll have more mindspace left to sort out the rest. Sarah’s advice will come in truly handy there.

Optimistically, I’m seeing it as practice. I may not have deadlines yet (aside from short stories/novellas), but it’s always best to tackle writing as if you do have deadlines. I work better with a little pressure, anyway, and it’s good preparation for that nebulous future as a professional author.

In the same way, I’m poking and prodding at my workspace-to-be. I don’t have a lot of room in the new apartment–my kingdom for an office!–which means that so far the plans for that workspace are pretty much ‘table in my living room,’ but I’m intent on making it the best damn ‘table in my living room’ possible.

A ‘dress for the career you’d like to have’ kind of thing.

And with that, I definitely need to get changed into my Batgirl & River Tam PJ combo. Adieu!