Freehold Friday: Sometimes you just need to step back and think.

Okay, I had to post something different this week. ��Getting kind of tired writing about…well…writing…I guess. ��I’m in the home stretch now editing AJE2 (once I’m finished revising the last few chapters, I’ll send the manuscript to Kinkos and get a hard copy, then read through it one last time before publishing) and I can totally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That said, I’m finding it increasingly hard to focus on a particular chapter. ��I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it to make it…flow…with the story. ��It’s been giving me a headache for a week now and really slowing down my progress. ��It’s like the reverse of writer’s block. ��Editor’s block? ��Is that even real? ��I don’t know. ��All I know is it’s frustrating as all get out. ��I’ve re-written this one chapter maybe 4 times now.

So I decided to try a tactic that worked for writer’s block the one and only time I suffered from it–do something else. ��Anything else that is meditative and let my subconscious shift gears out of the write (or in this case edit) 24/7 mode. ��Before, it was a day of woodworking (back when we had a heat wave in January and the temps outside hit the teens!). ��I stepped away from the computer during my valuable 2-hour nap-time/writing time window and locked myself in the garage (not really, the door remained unlocked at all times–I had a sleeping baby in the house, remember?). ��No computer, no cell phone, no digital recorder, no notes, no writing.

At first I felt incredibly guilty. ��After I picked up my favorite Japanese saw and smelled that first whiff of freshly cut wood, the tension melted away, the frustration vanished and I lost myself in the rhythm of the woodworking. ��Two hours later, my project was complete (I can’t even remember what the hell I was doing out there now, but it worked!) and I had the solution to my writing problem. ��I cranked out 40,000 words over the next 3 days.

This time, I decided to pick up my paintbrush. ��Among the things I enjoy doing, I count art near the top. ��Definitely top 3. ��During the course of my renovation of the hobby area in the basement a few weeks ago, when I transformed it from a storage dumping ground into my subterranean office, I discovered this:

It’s a simple watercolor painting I created in 2009 when we lived in Texas. ��I was bored one day, home from work (I worked at a big box craft store at the time) and dreaming of vacations. ��Next thing I knew, I had an old photo albulm of the time my dad and I made a wild-ass trip through Arizona and New Mexico. ��One of the pictures was of Bell Rock, Arizona. ��On a whim I decided to try and paint it with the crude watercolor set I had–hell, I ran an arts and crafts store and had seen people give demonstrations on how to paint I don’t know how many times. ��How hard could it be?

Four sheets of watercolor paper later, I found it it’s a lot harder than it looks. ��And this thing that I created didn’t look…well, it wasn’t bad…but it certainly wasn’t all that good either. ��But it was the first time I’d seriously tried my hand at watercolor and I was happy with it. ��Just looking at it brought back memories that made me smile.

And then it got tossed in a box and lost to me for six years. ��Until two weeks ago. ��Digging through everything in the basement to clear space for my office, I found it, framed it and hung it on the wall to give my writing space a splash of color.

So by now you’re asking yourself, what the hell does this have to do with anything? ��Right? ��Well, plenty. ��As my editing progressed in the last two weeks and I crashed headlong into the aforementioned chapter-from-hell, I found myself staring at that painting trying to muddle my way around the problem in the story. ��Finally it hit me–I need to step away, unplug, recharge and come at this from a new angle.

I closed the laptop, dug out my paints and paper and headed topside to the kitchen table. ��A few hours later, I had this:

This is my crude attempt to recreate a photograph I took when my wife and I toured Scotland in 2008 on our long-delayed honeymoon. ��One of our favorite castles was Dunottar, south of Aberdeen. ��It’s out on the rocky crag that juts into the ocean off Scotland’s east coast, accessibly only by what looked like a goat path from the mainland across some steep, rocky ground. ��And there were no hand rails or warning signs. ��We’re talking hundred foot cliffs, stiff winds and failing light.

Awesome!

We arrived at 5:15pm local time and struggled to make our way through the buffeting wind down the path (passing motorcyclists��wearing neon racing gear emblazoned with BMW over every square inch of their bodies) and finally clawed our way to the castle gate (or what was left of it–it’s a ruin, you know). ��The curator was just locking up. ��We were free to climb around on the outside, but sadly we could venture “nay further”.

Fine by us. ��We were happy to clamber around on the rocks and take pictures of the lonely ruins from a distance. ��One of those pictures I decided to paint this week.

And you know what? ��The moment I was finished and stepped back to admire my work, a light bulb turned on above my head and the solution to my editing impasse presented itself. ��That opened the floodgates and here I sit with only 7 chapters left to edit!

So there you have it, how a watercolor painting helped put AJE2 back on track. ��Kinda weird, but not really. ��No one can focus on one thing 24/7 waking and sleeping and not burn out. ��I think writer’s/editor’s block is just the mind’s way of putting on the breaks and making you take a step back to recharge before complete burnout sets in. ��Too bad my oven can’t do that…but that’s a different story.

Now I can feel the excitement building, just like when I wrote the very first words of this book. ��I can see the goal, it’s in sight. ��Time to hunker down and grind this sucker out!