The Year of the Zombie

According to the Rabiaesan Calendar, this is the Year of the Zombie (another note: the Rabiaesan Calendar skips around a lot, but began last year in November). Strangely, I cannot write while pregnant. This is probably because all my creative brain cells migrate down to the uterus to supervise the delicate and complex task of making a baby. Here’s hoping that they will return once the baby’s here, but it’s a hit-and-miss thing. I’m still missing some from the last two pregnancies; I have the feeling they fled to Bermuda where they are reading chick-lit and sipping pina coladas on the the beach.

All this to say that writing has been on the back burner for a while. Stories are lying cocooned in my mind, gently simmering away, gestating in the quiet dark, take your pick of metaphors. And that’s okay. There is a time and a season for everything under heaven: a time for making babies, and a time for making books. I’m sure all of us writers have been blindsided by life every now and again, and you know what? It’s okay to take time off from the physical act of putting words on paper (or computer screen) to get our affairs in order, pursue other things or just plain rejuvenate and recover. It’s taken me a long time to come to this place of acceptance: Writer’s Guilt, like Mommy Guilt, is a strong negative force in my life.

How ’bout all you other writers/creative people? What saps your creative energies, and how do you deal with it?

Next time, I’ll talk about how I keep that lovin’ feelin’ for writing, even during this long dry stretch of not-writing.