The Works of Autumn Cox

We all like to think that writing is like a waterfall when seen from a distance – ever flowing, perpetual and unstoppable.

The truth is that writing is much more like a waterfall close up – Little rocks and outcroppings that cause the flow to shift and change. Small grottos that catch the water and hold it for a time, until finally the spot overflows and the water starts pouring again.

Writer’s block is absolutely a thing, and can cause long spans of no writing at all, for whatever reason, but then you may also have a break in your writing for a couple days while you work through a problem in the plot, or deal with other issues in your life that preclude from time at the keyboard or pen.

If I’m honest, writing book one looked like two waterfalls – one when I started, then a big long flat river of absolutely no writing at all, and then an enormous all out rush that flooded a basin toward the end, when I started writing again.

Book two is feeling much more like one long, bumpy slide down a rocky slope. It’s coming along (I’m about 55000 words in, at this point, and I have a self imposed “due” date of early July to hand over my manuscript to my editor) but not nearly as fast as I expected it to.

That said, that’s not a bad thing, or a good thing. It’s just a thing. Writing, like water, will go where it wants, and it’s up to us to just do our best to keep up, follow the path it takes, and not let ourselves drown.