Writers block, cooking, and floods... oh my!

I am suddenly very much in the mood to cook.

I plan to make mac & cheese, ham & beans, stuffed peppers.... and probably whatever else I can whip up out of the pantry.

I don’t really plan to eat all that. I’ll most likely pass it around to family, friends and my client. It’s the cooking I’m in the mood for, not the eating.

This, my friends, is a symptom of writer’s block.

I am currently working on three books: The fifth in the Rainie Series, the fourth in the Red Wolf series, and the sequel to “Shadow.” They couldn’t be more different, and each requires an entirely different mood to be written effectively. Now surely, one would think, my mood should match one of them, and I should be able to write...

But no. I am not quite cheerful enough for Rainie, not quite ticked off enough for Shadow, and not quite whimsical enough for Red Wolves.

So, I must cook.

The creativity in me has to seep out somewhere. Sometimes I play guitar, or draw (not well) or do free hand embroidery or even paint little pewter figurines representing the characters in my books. Like Rainie, I sometimes resort to poetry (although I don’t often write it on bathroom walls) or if I’m really desperate I will simply rearrange the furniture.

All of these things do the same thing for me; they focus my mind on minutia, and let some of that creative energy trickle out a bit so it relieves the logjam in my head. Often, in the midst of stirring a sauce, inspiration will strike, and I abandon the stove for the keyboard.

Usually I remember to turn the burner off, but sometimes... well, I haven’t burned the house down yet!  I did, however, flood the bathroom once. I started water in the tub, thinking a hot bath might inspire me. I went back to my office to make a note on something, and Word pulled me in...

Two hours later, the bathtub was quite full, and so was the bathroom floor... carpeted, mind you!

That was somewhere around chapter three of “Rainie Daze,” if I remember correctly... but clearly, my memory is not to be completely trusted, especially if I am in writing mode!

So for the next couple of days I will cook, and hopefully get kick started into writing... which book, I don’t know. It might depend how the sauce turns out!

Maybe at my next book signing I’ll be handing out bowls of ham and beans to my readers along with a signed copy of my books...