Over the years, meaning the last two decades, I have developed a certain writing process that has proven to bring out my creativity and illustrate my love of words. But, now as a widowed retirement community resident, that process has been turned on its ear, and what comes next is what this post is all about.

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One thing that hasn’t changed is that my truest creativity cannot be turned on like a switch. I know very shortly after I start writing whether that day will be a productive one. If it isn’t, then I do something else. But, when the juices are flowing, and I am in my “zone”, I can shut the world out and spend almost 100% of my energy writing for at least a couple of hours at a time, and often for a full day. I think my Aspie traits have a powerful effect in this area, and I am thankful for that.

My most productive times are the mornings. My brain works overtime on the thoughts I took to bed, so when I wake up, I “must” put them down before they vaporize. That is the same now as it always has been.

For the last few hectic months, my brain has been running at an unsustainable Autobahn speed, with at least a half dozen things swirling around at the same time. It seems to now be slowing down to an Interstate speed, and hopefully will eventually be at a safer, more comfortable 55 mph cruising speed. I don’t know if I am an anomaly or if this is typical of others, but that is as it is.

I usually have at least a dozen different posts in the draft stage at any one time here at RJsCorner, but sometimes there are, like now, twenty-five in my queue and subsequently my brain seems to be working on all of them concurrently!

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Finally, I want to get to the comparing the new writing process to the one that was in place six months ago.

One of the things that is dramatically different is the frequency and duration of my productivity. Six months ago, when it was my wife and me, I seldom touched a keyboard after dinner. I spent that time reading and with TV. We usually spent about two hours every night watching TV. During that time, thoughts would come and as quickly go. Now that I am alone and due to my new cozy environment, there are only about six steps between my “watching” chair and my computer keyboard, I quickly hit the pause button to write more things down now. The frequency of that would have driven my wife crazy. Sometimes that “writing down” process takes a couple of seconds, and sometimes it is an hour or more! There is no longer anyone screaming (in sign language that is 🙄) asking where I am. I now go as long as the creative spurt lasts. At this time, I really don’t know whether this new process is an improvement or not? But, it does make my writing process more intense and more frequent.