THE DELICATE BALANCE OF EGO AND SOUL

I'm back in the saddle - or at least riding side-saddle. Ankle is healing, and now hobbling along with great gusto, instead of pity-padding along, feeling sorry for myself.

In terms of writing, oftentimes, I get to this point - stumped on a sentence, paragraph or scene. It is then that I pull out the mental crutches and sink creative shoulders into them for support. Self-pity can be a mighty comfortable cushion when all else fails. BUT staying immobile for too long, can cause atrophy to the muscles of the body AND to the brain as well.

Story writing is not for the meek and humble. It's a fine line writers walk between ego and soul. We become the devil's advocate when it comes to picking and choosing through human emotions and spiritual awareness, all for the purpose of adding depth and personality to our characters. Just as a physical injury can bring a person to dead halt in activities, so does our creativity when we come to a scene that fails to work. Or, perhaps we become truly exhausted from constantly dipping into that sticky ego for emotional growth of characters, and then find it equally difficult to lean to the other side and pick our souls for the right paths our characters must choose to follow to get to the end of the book. As writers we constantly question motive and direction of our characters from ALL angles, just to make everything fit succinctly into the story we are creating.

Truly, as writers we must be aware that our minds dealve into areas that often make us question all five senses and even our mortality. All this questioning can be very tiring. When we tire, we tend to put down our tools and threaten to give up. But like muscle and bone healing after an injury, we must forge ahead and not become immersed in self-pity or self-criticism. Recognize these emotions for what they are: temporary and sometimes NECESSARY.

The next time when a scene, chapter, paragraph, or whatever stumps you, just think about this inconvenient dry spell as being a lull in activity that eventually gives new direction to your writing. Understand that all things are connected in life, and the stories we create become stronger only when we take time out to use the crutches to maintain balance in order to regain our stength. Just be aware that at some point in time, you must gather the courage to throw the crutches aside and walk on your own again.