Writer’s Pause

You hear a lot about “writer’s block,” but nobody warned me about “writer’s pause.”

Writer’s block sounds dramatic. Writer’s pause is just annoying.

When I had a huge unfinished manuscript, I could always escape to another section. If one chapter stopped cooperating, fine. I had 497 other pages to meddle with.

Technically, I still have somewhere else to run. Chapter 3 of Part 2, on the World Cards, is full of words and ideas.

But every instinct I have says: don’t even think about it.

I feel as if I need the Time Cards to become as complete as the Soul Cards are before I’ll understand the shape of what comes next. Once I know that, I can go to that chapter and let the weight of all those words pull me in the direction they want to go.

So for now, I have to “lay down my pen” and leave Chapter 2 alone to percolate until my chef’s intuition tells me I can go back to it.

It’s annoying. And yet, it also seems to be a promise that progress is being made.

I still wonder why writers don’t complain about this more.