Shiny New Ideas

Welcome back, reader! It’s nice to see you again. This will be a bit of a shorter post, but hopefully one you can still find value in.

There’s nothing my brain likes more while doing intense revisions than that shiny new idea creeping onto the scene that is my brain. But I have a lot of anxiety around sticking to one thing to make sure it actually gets done, rather than jumping around from one thing to another. Unfortunately, sometimes this is exactly what you need to keep up your enjoyment for writing. I spent so much time thinking about the one project that I didn’t really let anything else take up space. But things keep growing, whether or not you’re looking directly at them. In this case, a lovely little idea kept cropping up and I kept jotting down notes for it in my phone. And when I hit a bit of a slog point with my big project, and it felt a bit too daunting with a few too many things to keep track of, I indulged in this smaller idea.

I have guilt about setting the larger pirate story aside, but I have also really enjoyed exploring this other idea for a while. It has progressed fairly naturally, and I haven’t had to make any intense finagling happen to get things to work. And I know I’ll go back to the larger project, because I really like it. But there’s something to be said for a brain break.

I asked my mentor about having multiple projects on the go, and she said there’s always more than one going. She advised me to follow the heat wherever my interest was burning. It’ll be a practice in discipline; working on this fun, easy project and going back to the pirates and big fish.

So, if you’re feeling like your current project has hit a slog point, indulge the little shiny idea a bit. But make sure it isn’t an escape from having to face the original idea. It’s taking a bit of time, not an ending of that project. If you’re like me, you’ll feel like you’re abandoning it, but you’re not so long as you return to it.

Another thing I’ve been indulging lately are books that are far more fun than they are thought-provoking. And let me tell you, that’s a pretty good brain break, as well.

Drop me a message with your best brain-break activities, or your favourite fun book! I’ll see you in next month’s post, with hopefully more capacity for a longer note.

Tired and foggy,

Micaëla