Ruts

By Matt Sinclair

I’ve been in a rut lately. Since the year began, a bunch of little things have gone wrong. Car accidents. Promises unfulfilled. Goals unmet. Projects not started or incomplete. Too much time spent on others that should have been nixed. Now, here we are, halfway through 2015, and it seems like I’ve struck out looking. (Perhaps it’s fitting that I’m a Mets fan, but I digress…)

Ruts are worrisome because they’re comfortable. They’re developed over a long time of doing mostly the same thing. As a creature of routine, I like having a sense of what is ahead; it enables me to address problems when they occur. But a rut is different from a routine. For me, recognizing a rut usually means I’m at risk of getting stuck in the mud, and boy those wheels can spin, can’t they?

Doing something completely different seems to work best. The other night my wife was working on a home project. She was invigorated. She felt creative. She couldn’t be stopped. I bet she felt darn good after accomplishing what she set out to do. It certainly looked good.

A part of me was jealous. So I decided to write something different. I like the initial results. Of course, the jury’s out on whether what I create will be worthwhile, but that isn’t the point. The goal is to get out of the rut, to see things from a different perspective, to make progress.

What do you do to get out of a writing rut? Care to share?

Matt Sinclair, a New York City-based journalist and fiction writer, is also president and chief elephant officer of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, which recently published Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand by R.S. Mellette and Tales from the Bully Box, a collection of anti-bullying stories edited by Cat Woods. Matt also blogs at the Elephant's Bookshelf and is on Twitter @elephantguy68.