In my online writing group this morning, we were discussing how difficult it can be to get back into writing after taking a break. Not just how difficult it is to jump back in after not writing at all, but also the challenge to dive back into a specific work in progress (WIP) after taking some time away to write other things.
One of my writing community friends works with a writing coach who had her step away from her manuscript for a season to write and submit online devotions to bolster her confidence. The plan was successful, as several of her submissions were published, which has renewed her belief in her abilities. But now, as she desires to return her attention to her WIP, she feels “empty” and disconnected from her story and her characters.
I relate to this dilemma. I felt the same way after taking some time away from my second draft of a project. The murky middle ensnared me in the muck and mire of the rewrite. Manuscript or revision fatigue is a real thing. Burnout can happen, and writers can actually grow weary or sick of their own work. So I decided to take a big step back from my WIP, which was a romantic suspense novel, and try something different to jumpstart my creativity: writing contemporary romance flash fiction.
As I shared before, I’ve loved discovering flash fiction. It has fed my imagination in so many ways, giving me an outlet to experiment with various ideas, POVs, characters, and tenses. I believe it’s a form of writing I will carry with me always, using it to break up projects, rejuvenate my creativity, and to remind myself how FUN writing can be.
After an enjoyable season of writing only flash fiction, I finally decided it was time to return to the back-burner project of the rewrite. I expected the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” to be at play here, but my experience ended up more like “out of sight, out of mind.” I’d lost touch with my characters and had to re-read the draft from the beginning to reconnect with them and their story. Ironically, the flash fiction community I’m connected with posted this meme yesterday. Teehee. Apparently I’m not the only one to become a stranger with a story after a break.
So, how to get back into the groove? I found journaling from the POVs of my two main characters to be helpful in reestablishing a heart connection to them and crawling back into their head space. This material probably won’t go into the draft, but it helped me ease back into the world of these characters and their journeys.
Another approach I’m using is not worrying about revising chronologically, but instead, working on scenes that I’m adding in. The words flow easier in these fresh scenes because I’m writing them from scratch, not trying to fix something already written. They help remind me where my story is going. It has been a slow roll to regain momentum. But I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, or one word after another as the case may be, until I rediscover my rhythm with my manuscript.
Of course, these are things that seem to be working for me. I’m sure there are as many ideas on how to return to a project from a break as there are writers out there. How do you transition back to a back-burnered project? What advice can you share on reconnecting with a WIP you’ve taken a break from or getting back into writing after taking a full hiatus?