I've been very hands-on since funemployment began. Baking, cooking, and...crafts!
What happens when it's midnight and I have pliers and a paperclip in hand?
Yup...this is what happens. Thanks to inspiration from the I Spy DIY blog, I now have a cute little heart ring on my finger.
In addition to that, I also have supplies for bracelet (and other jewelry) making and my previous new find of needle felting to keep me occupied in the crafty way. Needle felting, by the way, is totally awesome. I repaired holes in my cashmere sweater and also created adorable little heart-shaped elbow patches. So easy and so quick! I highly recommend it. :)
I have two thoughts about this recent explosion in craftiness on my part:
1) Lawyering and being a legal eagle was stifling my creative side to such an extreme extent that I now feel this subconscious need to compensate for that lost time. At the end of the day, being behind a desk and working on docs and agreements didn't necessarily produce anything substantive or tangible. Don't get me wrong - I'm not putting down lawyering. However, it's impossible to wear an agreement or accessorize with a private equity fund memorandum. There's no getting around that Doing crafts and creating things with my hands is just much more satisfying to that part of me that needed to produce something physical from all of my effort.
2) Crafting has, unfortunately, also been accompanied by a massive case of writer's block. Boooooooo. Perhaps there's a parallelism to my above thought number 1 because with writing I'm also sitting in front of a computer versus physically using my hands and materials to create something fun and tangible. Regardless of the reason, though, it's immensely frustrating. I recently started a second story, so I have two WIPs now. However, I haven't made much progress on either of them, and I really need to focus. Basically, I can't seem to sit still because, now that I think about it, my reading has also really tapered off in the last two months.
So...yes.
Being crafty like a fox is, on the one hand, awesome because I get to make cool stuff like my paperclip ring, and my friends will get handmade jewelry as little presents from yours truly. It is also, on the other hand, super frustrating because I can't seem to focus myself so that I sit down and flesh out what I have in mind for the boys in my stories. I'm quite torn because I have this desire to be creative; it's just not creative in the writing sense right now. I've just been going with the flow since this started with funemployment nearly two months ago, but wow...it's pretty much a writer's block the size of Stonehenge at this point. *cringes*
Anyone have any ideas for how to kick this writing slump while still feeding my thirst to get hands-on creative nowadays?
Trying to find a balance between using her hands for creating crafts versus stories,
NJ
I love that ring. As to the writer's block, try this...
ReplyDeleteDon't write anything "for publication." Just write for fun. If you normally write 1st person POV erotica, try 3rd person POV horror. Something totally different, short, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. What usually happens is that you get the writing juices flowing again, and you might find out you like something different, too. And, you might even have something worthy of publication at the end. (*cough, LUMBERJACK, cough*) ;^)
ha! Thanks for the tip, Penny! You know, I wrote a short and porny real person slash/fanfic thingee last month, and that was really easy writing. I might go poking around those waters to help me get my groove back. :D
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