Love Those Wide Open Spaces: This is My Brain on Writing

I’m a freelance writer. Perspective on this career is that my life that ebbs and flows with the availability of assignments. The reality of my occupation is that production never ceases.

One of the offshoots of writing is that it energizes my brain. This would be quite an asset if my head would slow down as the workday wound down. But that’s not really how it functions. When I’m onto projects, my mind runs full throttle and thoughts are racing 24-hours a day.

The energy I get from writing carries me through life.

Sitting at my desk at Zero Dark Thirty, I glance up and find that day has dawned and I haven’t yet reached for my coffee.

It’s sunlight peering through the east windows that sends me scurrying for feed buckets and to my outdoor chores because when I’m, fully immersed, I forget the time. Even as I tend the farm, my head is swimming in concepts ripe and ready for consumption.

My personal shopping, my housework and even my friendships get relegated to tiny microbursts of activity when I’m writing--clips of social responsibility viewed through a lens of distraction. Day turns to evening; evening into late night; and I’m still fully engaged with a strange driving force.

Dreams wake me with new directions that I mull over in bed and jot down in the dark. When morning returns, I follow the new pathways feeling invigorated.

Sounds bi-polar, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s ongoing inspiration.

A strange form of creativity creeps into my soul when I write. It runs wide open until well-spent, then demands a day or two for peace and restoration.

Monday was such a day. I shut the door to my office, closed up my tools, and found a comfy spot in the sun to pause and refresh.

I’ll sleep well this week for doing so.

- Sanne Collins

From the Ranch in Florida

What’s Been Keeping Me Busy Lately

Love Those Wide Open Spaces is a blog designed to follow my daily life as a freelance writer and rancher. It’s a life full of constant change and a wide scope of interests.

Freelance writing, by its definition, requires the ability to write on a variety of subjects, to juggle many assignments during the times of plenty, and to fill the void when checks are slow. That said, I’m always writing.

Much of my work is done for others such as corporations, websites, or articles penned under another’s name. I’ve sold the rights to these works, so they can’t be shared.

However, many of my projects are available under my own name and can be read right here on the web.

You can click on either the site or the story below to see them.

Check out what’s been keeping me busy lately!