Kathy Stinson ~ Turning the Pages

Sometimes after a lengthy interruption to one’s writing life, it’s hard to get back in the groove. Whether time away from a project is for holiday celebrations, vacation, tending to the needs of family or friends, or for work that’s sure to put bread on the table next month, there’s an inevitable break in any momentum one has managed to build. Crazy as it seems, it can actually be scary to open up that file that will invite your characters (if you’re writing fiction) or your subject (if you’re writing non-fiction) back into your life again. (“If you’re writing”, I say, but if you’re like me, after a lengthy interruption, you’re not writing. You’re doing just about anything to avoid it.)

To nudge myself gently toward the task that I know will engage and even engross me once I’m back at it, I will sometimes read blogs of other writers. It sort of feels like I’m working, it sometimes gives me a practical tip or two, but often it just helps me find that part of my brain that remembers I am a writer. No, I’m not so far gone that I actually forget that, but after time away from my writing, I don’t feel much like one.

Some blogs I like to visit are friends’ blogs: www.erinthomas.com and www.lenacoakley.com, for example. Both of them have links to other blogs that I also visit from time to time.

Sometimes I visit the blogs of writers whose work I’ve been editing: like www.tudorrobins.ca (Tudor’s first novel, Objects in Mirror, will be published this spring.)

During our email chats about her manuscript, Tudor put me onto another blog that has become one of my favourites: www.kaykenyon.com.

Reading other people’s blogs isn’t writing. It won’t get that story or that non-fiction book written. Only writing will do that. But it’s a painless and often effective way of easing back into writing. What writers’ blogs do you like to read when you need help easing back into your own work so you can once again feel like a legitimate member of the writing community?