Diving Into Your Imagination

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted on my blog, and I promise you that the reason is mainly because I have been very busy working on writing and reading!

What's interesting to me is the reading part since when, as a writer, you consider sitting down to spend an hour or two reading, it seems to be counter-intuitive. Why should I waste an hour reading for pleasure when I should be creating content? Do more work, damn it!

That is what my brain has been telling me. And it's basically screwed with my imagination for the better part of a week. Writer's block is basically the fear that you have run out of ideas. Essentially with my brain telling me to constantly produce, produce, produce, I was backing myself into a corner, afraid that I had run out of ideas.

This is not the truth. If you are struggling with this, don't let your brain do this to you! Our realistic and pessimistic side loves to tell us that we only finished that first book because we were lucky. I'm here to say that it wasn't because I was lucky - it was because I was inspired and my creative juices were flowing. When I was stuck a few weeks back, it was because my creative juices were too terrified to flow, and a drought was happening.

To continue to write inspired fiction or any type of writing, we need to feed our imaginations. This includes reading for pleasure and, in my case, forcing myself to enjoy reading for pleasure again.

And, wouldn't you know it - reading for pleasure also forced me to do something else that I haven't done in a long time, and something that is essential to being inspired - I read some books and authors that I've never heard of! It was so exciting! After being transported to some new fictional vistas, I wondered why I was so scared to create more of my own in the first place.

Then I sat down and started to write.

It feels good.

If you're checking out the blog, you will see that I've posted a widget to enter into my Goodreads giveaway for an autographed paperback edition of my latest book, (Can You Survive) The Zombie Apocalypse. It will be open for entries for a month, but if you don't want to wait that long, you can pick up a copy here. The Kindle version is available for the low price of $0.99 so that you can use that extra penny for something else!

In short, summer weather is here, and that means time to read, explore, and above all, write.