Vacations For The Brain
Summertimes, I don’t usually expect to get much done. Kids are home all the time, or else I’m playing chauffer/taxi/events planner/referee, but this year seems oddly different. Oh, I still drive more than a long-distance trucker, but I seem to be getting more done than I expected. I’m not sure why, but I’m just going to be grateful about it for now.
Writing is one of those activities that can be done with little conscious focus, and in the atmosphere of many distractions, but at the same time, does require a significant amount of brainpower if you want it to make any sort of sense. And crafting stories does need focus. I’m not sure how everyone else does it, but if I’m in the middle of a pivotal scene (and they’re all supposed to be pivotal), I have to feel it if I’m going to write it well. And that does involve not being interrupted every five minutes with, “Mooooom! Can you make a tee shirt out of ham?” (actual question, and no, you can’t. Not with turkey either. You can, however, bowl with a frozen ham, as well as a frozen turkey, as long as you have some empty bottles from the recyclables bin to act as pins).
So when I’ve looked back at my log of “What I Did On Summer Vacation” so far, I see work–and that’s some solid work–on three different WIPs, plus an outline of one more for the future. Right now, the secret seems to be to divide my efforts between ol’ Sparky the laptop and good ol’ fashioned pen and paper. However, it’s not just dividing time between home and away. My pen and paper stuff has to be worked on in pen and paper. And my electronic stuff needs to stay electronic. As a result, I end up with different mediums, but works that are completely on a single medium. My brain seems to be coping with it this way, though, so I’m content to keep things as they are.
I’ve also discovered that the brain needs resting time. Once, in a discussion with other writers, another writer mentioned that she kept her full-time job even though she’d been published, and had full intentions of furthering her publishing career. I thought, “who in the world would want another career if their writing one could pay off enough to keep them in coffee beans?” But it turns out, that writer may have had a point. Now, I’m in a position where I don’t have another paying job (because nobody pays you to raise kids, yet to many people–self included–it’s the most important job in the world, and while the bennies are fantastic, I wish they included health care and pocket change), but I have learned that having something else to focus on–and making it a priority–can really go far in uncramping a writing brain. Especially if it’s something the creative part of your brain, or the part that moves your hands, can engage in, leaving the verbal part to toddle off on its own and have a think. Being one of those “writer’s writers” makes it hard for me to actually leave writing, even when I’m not doing it, but it’s worth it to take care of your brain.
I’m pampering my gray matter this summer, and its response is typical of anyone presented with a free vacation. It’s gone to disneyland.
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