It’s an interesting thing to be thinking about.

When you have ideas for that next project for a freelance client, that next blog piece, that great essay or poem.

That great book.

It is a constant state for me and takes up much of my thinking for the better part of a day. Having now published two books under my own label Frogsong Productions the question is surfacing for me again. What will I do next?

I never expected to write a book about not having children, but I did it. I never expected to get inspired enough to write a collection of experimental satire, but I did it. So maybe I really do not know for sure what I will do next. No matter what it is I am sure it will be a surprise to even myself.

The creative process never truly stops. Even as life fills the tank with other things the process is ongoing. I used to spend hours and even days on end feeling guilty for having a minimal artistic output. Those feelings of guilt ultimately did nothing but undermined my confidence in my abilities to write.

So if you are looking for the cure to so-called “Writer’s Block”, let me let you in on something.

It does not exist in my world because I refuse to allow it in.
This does not mean I always get pen to paper or keystroke to screen every single day. The stacks of notebooks that take up a portion of a shelf in my office are there looking down on me every day. My bedside table has several dollar-store notepads and bits of paper are strewn about like clumps of dust that have never been cleaned up.

During those moments where I may not be actually working in the physical act of writing, there is always a process taking place in thought. You can draw in ideas from just being in the moment.

Now that there are two books to my credit, one of the things I have been saying is that I would like to write the “Great Canadian Novel”. I would like to write a book that a traditional publisher would pick up, print, distribute, and assign a book-signing schedule for me to follow through on. There are story ideas I would like to tell. Perhaps it is time for those ideas to appear as intricate details on the computer screen. It might be time for write a story in long-form and submit it the tried and traditional way. As much as I continue to enjoy having books out under my own label maybe it is time to try something different.

Recently, I ran into a colleague who appeared at a local chain book store location for a book signing he was conducting. When we had the chance to chat it was a moment of shop-talk for me to share the recent completion of my short fiction collection and my plans to write the “Great Canadian Novel”.

He interjected to tell me some of the best advice I’ve heard in ages.

“How about you just write a great novel?”

Makes sense to me. So with that in mind, it’s time to get to work.

Twitter @WriterDann