Project Slump and Chaotic Creativity

Via Candyworx at Deviant Art

Whenever I finish a project, there's this sense of accomplishment for a day or two. I take a much needed breather and relax. That happened a few days ago. I must admit from the outside it looks a lot like lazy, but it's not. I'm recharging my creative batteries. Renewing my brain cells.


By the third day, I'm strangely sad and bored. I spin in circles directionless for the most part. There's no major writing that needs to be done so I spend my time doing what I call research. It's actually surfing the web and reading anything that crosses my path that seems interesting whether it applies to a current, upcoming story or not. It's also a time where I have dozens of ideas that I have no way to implement without extensive research.

Here are six ideas I had yesterday alone:


1. Could I use my developing Photoshop skills to create a picture of certain scenes from my books and put them on the blog or Pinterest?

2. I should create a blog for the characters as if they were real people. Or maybe a Facebook page at least.

3. Interactive books could be a lot of fun. What about an interactive adventure story like I used to read as a kid. Those were so much fun.

4. Are GIF ebook covers going to catch on? Should I think about one right now? How hard would it be to animate a book cover?

5. Audio books are great for lots of people. I wonder how much it would cost to hire someone to read my books.

6. I need a website. Eventually, I can sell my books there!

Notes

Writing another story will pull me out of the funk, but I also know that without the mental health break, the directionless spin will be worse. The slump makes me doubt the overall direction of my work, too. The slump is evil. The slump hovers like a dark rain cloud spewing lightning and large chunks of hail on me and my stories. Each chunk of hail has writing on it like bricks with notes attached thrown through windows by delinquent teenagers bent on vandalism and violent rampage. They say things like Your writing isn't as good as it could be or Did you spend 6 months on that piece of trash story? or Nobody is going to buy your books. I know! The notes are mean.

Contest Update

This brings me to the purpose of the post. I uploaded chapter 2 at JukePop Serials. I didn't care about winning that contest. I still don't, but I'd hoped to get a little exposure for my story. They have the contest entries hidden from the main stories, so readers are not going to stumble across it. I'll continue uploading my story because I don't like to back out of a commitment, but I am rethinking my decision. I should have chosen another avenue for exposure. Looking into Wattpad at the moment. That might be the next step.

New Story

I have ideas ruminating in my head for a cozy mystery with some comedy peppered in it. After all the research and planning I've had to do for it, I have huge admiration for the mystery writing process. Clues, red herrings and a bunch of suspects along with the side characters and making sure the plot ties together nicely without giving away the ending. Hard stuff.

I've completed the background on my main character and some of her family. I've listed out many of the ones I'd like to see in the book so far. I love creating characters. Especially quirky ones. Casey works as an Integrity Shopper, which is almost like a mystery shopper. She's hired by companies to test their security systems against theft by shoplifting to see how easy it is, judge the competency of the employees and the security system to see if she gets caught. She's cursed with a tendency to be accident prone, too. I'm stuck on some of the clues and details! It'll work itself out. It usually does.

I'm coming out of the project slump, which happened to coincide with the end-of-the-year blues. Things will start looking up soon. I hope that wasn't too depressing! It's all part of my creative process as weird as it sounds. A bit of chaos and self-doubt but creative things usually emerge.

I'd love to hear about how other people find their creativity and the process they go through when a project is complete.

Happy New Year, Everyone!