Avoiding Writing

I've spoken with other writers about their favorite ways to avoid writing and their are many. The obvious ones are immersing yourself in a streaming series as a distraction. Or perhaps reading a book that you've been wanting to get to for a while. Or eating. Gardening. The list goes on.

My distraction is based on a need. After spending a month, three months, a year or more on a piece, you have to try and turn off the brain. If you're like me, and I think most writers are, you can't not write. Even when you are in a group, you are writing. You see a mannerism, hear a comment, witness an exchange in a restaurant and it triggers something. And when you spend that kind of mental energy, sixteen, eighteen hours a day, your twitching neurons and synapses need a break. 

And that is where sculpting comes in. I need something grounded in a physical act. I can't use my brain, or at least not consciously. So I mix up concrete and lose myself in fashioning...something. Sometimes I will make a rough sketch, but more often than not, I'm freelancing and making whatever comes to mind. Sometimes you make a small face and like it so much, you make a mold so you can produce ten more of them to sprinkle into a wall. On a side note, walls are my current fixation.

The wall below was created after twelve months of pushing through on Poacher and three related SynOrganics stories. At some point, you have enough and your head is filled and you have to get your hands dirty. She's starting to age nicely and I can't wait for moss and lichen to show up and give her a bit more character. Right now she looks like she just dropped in, out of place, trying to get her bearings. But soon enough she'll blend in and be the member of the family she has always been.

Now it's time to get back to writing.