The Power in Refilling Your Well.
How Not Thinking About Writing Helps Your Writing.
As of July 8, the Ivy Falls series is complete! I’m so proud of these books and the cast of characters who have kept me company for so many years. Sadly, there will not be a fourth book as originally planned due to many issues. Does this mean you’ll never see the cast of Ivy Falls again? Probably not. I have an idea for a Christmas novella (Pete and Lauren’s story) that I’m going to let percolate for a while and hopefully self-publish next year!
The end of a series is filled with many highs and lows, but, truthfully, when I turned in the final pass pages for Book 3, I was exhausted. Three books published within a year timeframe is A LOT, but I’m incredibly proud of the stories I’ve shared and how readers have received them.
To honor this achievement, I planned a trip to celebrate the release of the last book in the series, Welcome Home to Ivy Falls when it hit shelves in the UK. A special part of release day was getting to share the book with Sarah, the owner of Saucy Books, the only all romance bookstore in London that opened recently! It is an amazing little indie bookshop, and I highly encourage you to visit if you are in London.
While this trip was part business, as I also attended the MeetCute Book Festival, it was also a time to refill my well. To rest. To eat. To explore places I’ve wanted to see for years and just be quiet with my thoughts. It’s incredible how when you stop worrying about writing, inspiration begins to flourish inside you. Perhaps it’s the fact that you’re not carrying around that heavy weight of expectation. That you can make room in your mind for new ideas, new challenges, new inspiration.
As I walked through the beautiful streets of London, Richmond, Edinburgh, and picturesque little villages in the Scottish Highlands, I slowly felt my creative self coming back to life. Around every beautiful, historic corner, the cylinders in my brain started to fire again. Ideas about what kind of stories could bloom from my experiences started to fill my mind. I took endless pictures, filmed long videos, and wrote short notes in my journal with bits of dialogue and vivid setting details.
Those small moments were all a part of refilling my well. Of finding inspiration in the world around me. In those quiet interludes, I began to imagine new heroines, new villains, and storylines that made the blood in my veins spark to life again.
I did not really know how much I needed a break until I discovered that the thought of writing again filled me with joy instead of dread. That it was in walking away from the job that I could find my love for the process and the craft again.
In my opinion, we don’t talk enough about writer burn out. The way that deadlines can pile up. Make us feel like a mouse running on a perpetually spinning wheel. As creatives we need time, space, and moments to just breathe. To be filled with light, inspiration, and purpose so we can return to the page.
If you’re in a place where the thought of writing makes you feel anxious, I hope you’ll give yourself the freedom to step away. To engage your mind in new ways so writing does not feel like a burden. I think you’ll find that once you begin to give your body and mind time to rest, the stories will begin to flow out of you once again.
And one more note…
My writer friend, Ruthie Henrick, just released a baseball romance. Be sure to check it out!
About the book:
Welcome to Tennessee Terrors Baseball! Curveball is an Enemies to Lovers, Single Dad, Single Mom, Grumpy-Sunshine, Fake Relationship, Baseball RomCom that will keep you swooning and chuckling out loud!
I kissed him on a dare. Turns out he’s famous. Max Murphy, starting pitcher for the Tennessee Terrors. Oh, and the single father of one of my students. Talk about a curveball. And now it seems I must make nice with the tattooed hottie, no matter how much his surly attitude grates on my nerves.
America’s heartthrob is throwing a pretty good season, and the press is all over us when we’re together—something I have experience with, and ran from long ago. When our accidental touches trigger heart-stuttering moments that are caught on camera, my bad boy offers a solution that just might be a game changer—play along as man and wife.
But pulling off a fake marriage isn’t a walk in the ballpark, and it doesn’t take long before those touches are a whole lot more intentional . . . and the emotions crowding my heart feel a little bit like love.
CURVEBALL Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DYPWXY7V
All photos included in this article are the property of Amy True and should not be reproduced or shared without written permission.