Trusting the Process

Well clearly it's been a week to lie fallow, to take care of the physical (self and household) while letting the creative energy slowly build back up. I've just been mentally/creatively spent, so much so that even the generally helpful reflection-through-writing time that blogging provides has seemed like far too much effort. With all the times I've been through these tidal periods of slowdown and buildup, you'd think I'd have learned to recognize and trust the process (not to mention my own internal rhythms). Ebb and flow, ebb and flow. But I still get panicky when things slow down, when even after much mixing and stirring my brain won't let things out until they've finished baking, no matter how anxious I am to see how the cake's turned out. Or to change metaphors midstream yet again (just for kicks), what I'm trying to say is that by now I should know, because it's happened so many times, that every fallow period is followed by the lovely green shoots of healthy new plants, especially if I've allowed the field to be fertilized with a little rest and TLC.

I feel an upswing, a growing of new leaves in progress. I've made some important breakthroughs in places I was stuck in the novel writing, and I'm back to feeling jazzed (if still often ignorant in a big-picture sense) about where I'm going with it. My energy for other kinds of little projects (household management, answering emails to friends, figuring out holiday logistics, blogging) seems to be coming back too. Hopefully I'm heading into a good week. I'm going to trust the process and say that I am. Stay tuned.