{"id":606,"date":"2020-09-12T11:11:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=606"},"modified":"2020-09-11T21:50:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T05:50:02","slug":"in-the-creativity-war-sometimes-you-need-to-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2020\/09\/12\/in-the-creativity-war-sometimes-you-need-to-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Creativity War, Sometimes You Need to Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even before the pandemic hit, I was having trouble getting traction on my new book. Lots of notes, lots of false starts. Feeling like a blind badger trying to find its way through unfamiliar territory. Since we entered Covid-world, it\u2019s only gotten worse. I\u2019m sure you all have your own reasons why it\u2019s hard to get things done these days. Add to that a degree of discouragement over how hard it\u2019s been to get my two-volume last novel (<em>The Reefs of Time \/ Crucible of Time<\/em>) noticed within the SF readership, and the result has been a creative malaise that I\u2019ve found very difficult to shake.<\/p>\n<p>Wife to the rescue. The moment certain outside stressors let up enough to allow it to happen, she seized the proverbial bull by the you-know-whats and made the call to get me a retreat-spot on Cape Cod. Sending me kicking and screaming, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n<p>And now I\u2019m here in Sandwich, MA, near the sea, land of great bicycling and even greater seafood. I\u2019m loving it. Her instructions were explicit: \u201cIf you can write, that\u2019s great. But you are not going there to get writing done. You are going there to shed all the dog walking and the house repair and the taking care of people who need help and the worrying about the state of the world and find yourself again. You are going to rediscover what it means to you to write a book, and why you want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, here I am. Too soon to be certain, but from preliminary signs, I think it could be working. (And I did write a bit last night.)<\/p>\n<p>Here are some pix from the motel and the Cape Cod Canal bike trail.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16677\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16677\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16677 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.starrigger.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/CapeCodCanalside-bike-trail-sundown_sm.jpg\" alt=\"CapeCodCanalside bike trail sundown\" width=\"700\" height=\"422\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16677\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sunset over the Cape Cod Canal bike trail.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16676\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16676\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16676 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.starrigger.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/CapeCodCanal-nifty-Coast-Guard-boat_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"380\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16676\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Coast Guard, heading out toward Cape Cod Bay. I&#8217;d like to have one of those boats, tough and seaworthy. I wouldn&#8217;t paint it gray, though. Something bright.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16678\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16678\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16678 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.starrigger.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/CapeCod-Motel-ducks_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"460\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16678\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Duck-mascots at the motel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even before the pandemic hit, I was having trouble getting traction on my new book. Lots of notes, lots of false starts. Feeling like a blind badger trying to find its way through unfamiliar territory. Since we entered Covid-world, it\u2019s only gotten worse. I\u2019m sure you all have your own reasons why it\u2019s hard to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-experiences","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}