I recently read P.C. Wrede's "Not Writing" and found it hit upon something I don't often like to face up to in my own writing life: my process includes periods of not writing. Sometimes I need to read and refresh and refuel, but more than that, I go through phases of mulling and percolating and mentally hammering my way through a thorny problem or just not thinking about it while not getting so immersed in another fic that I really don't percolate while not thinking about it.
I need to accept this as part of my process, not use it to make excuses, but accept when I'm working by not working. It does happen.
And from the original post:
I spend quite a lot of time not-writing. I have, on occasion, been told that I have writer’s block when I haven’t produced anything in a long time. I always find this a bit puzzling, because I don’t feel particularly blocked. I could sit down and write a new first chapter or a bunch of backstory for something or any number of bits and pieces that might eventually find their way into a story; I just don’t see much point in doing so right then, for one reason or another.
Sometimes, the reason is that I have more important things to do, like getting the plumber to stop the waterfall in the bathroom while I move all my paper books out from under the leak in the ceiling, or like being executor of my mother’s estate. Sometimes, the reason is that I am sick and tired of the thing I’m working on, but I know better than to start a shiny new project while I am in the miserable middle of an older one, so I choose not to write anything. Sometimes, the reason is that it is a nice day and I am going to take a book outside and sit under a tree and read. Sometimes, the reason is that I need to mull over the things I already know need to happen in the current story so that I can figure out the exact right thing to be the next piece of it. Sometimes, the reason is that I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere and I need to completely rethink my plot, starting two or six or fourteen chapters ago. And sometimes, I simply have a profound disinclination to write.
I don’t call any of those things “writer’s block.” I don’t think they are deserving of the term, and I don’t think I ought to be allowed the copout.
