Writing Slump - Who You Gonna Call?

We're in the middle of a major audit at the day job, nine auditors in residence, hundreds of files, I'm supporting the activity eleven to twelve hours a day...not doing much writing this week! I've been coming home exhausted and so although I don't have writer's block (which my fellow Whore James pointed out on Monday is a different thing than a slump), I guess you can say I'm in a slump of sorts. In my head there's black magic going on in ancient Egypt and the hero is slaying a demon or two to rescue the heroine BUT I'm just too tired to write it down. All the plot is there, but as Marcella said in her blog today, I need REST. I went to bed at 5PM the day before yesterday! I fell asleep before Project Runway Allstars even started last night!

So I was perfectly poised to write this blog post on my remedies for slumps. Then I opened my email and discovered that my self published science fiction romance WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM had received Second Place in its category in the 2013 Laurel Wreath Awards. BOOM, all my lack of energy promptly disappeared LOL. I was so thrilled and excited....of course I still haven't worked on my WIP tonight yet but hey, full of energy now so watch out, world. (I'm writing this post on Friday night, as usual...)

But normally when I'm in a slump, no lovely e mails  arrive out of the blue to knock me out of the temporary downtime, so what do I fall back on? Well, sleep, obviously...My best remedy is to walk away from the computer and just sit with my iPod and listen to music. I have all my favorite songs on there and I let myself drift with the music and forget about the book I'm writing or the cares of the day. Sometimes I'll watch music videos on youtube but when doing that I'm still AT the computer, so not as good. Music is definitely my number one pickmeup.

I enjoy taking a walk, with or without music. I love taking a long drive on the freeways, usually going north so as to miss the traffic jams, and blast music really loud.

I have been known to meditate - not a patient person so - don't laugh - but I meditate for five minutes and that always helps. I can even bring my blood pressure down 20-30 points at the doctor's office if I do this specific five minute mental exercise, which centers around a visualization of the beautiful lake in Upstate New York where my grandparents had a cabin.  I used to take the rowboat out by myself and go fishing or exploring...

I have a feeling these guys could bust writing slumps as well as ghosts (sorry, HAD to do it, since the song is now stuck in my head, I'm sharing it with you LOL).