Imagination Fatigue and Losing Hope

Every now and then I'll get into slumps in which I find I cannot write. Some author's call this "writer's block" but I don't usually find that to be a good description of what I experience - because technically, I can still write.

It was a few years ago, while in one of these slumps that I realised it wasn't so much a block as it was actually a fatigue of my imagination. I no longer felt inspired to write. My big, overflowing dam of imagination, had dried up and I had nothing...

I could just stare at a page in Word, knowing what I *needed* to write, knowing everything about the story, the characters, the plot, the world - everything - but I had nothing to give. Even ploughing through this fatigue felt like hiking through a barren wasteland as everything I wrote came out so dry and bland.

Usually when such a phase happens I'll jump ship - so to speak - I'll move myself over to another one of my many worlds and start writing another story. Like, say I've been working on Chronicles of the Children for a long time, I'll jump over to Crack of Middrift, Tea Traders, Beneath the Burning Southern Sky, or numerous other worlds. Doing this usually jump-starts my imagination again.

But lately... Lately it hasn't helped.

Lately I've been finding it isn't just imagination fatigue, but also a creeping feeling of failure - how to support myself - how to continue my adventures - and just...what do I do?

When I sit down to write now I am filled, not with abounding joy and excitement, but with dread and shame. Those are not good emotions to try and write an epic tale with.

I do not know what to do with this new, strange slump I have found myself in. I do not know how to renew my hope in what I do.

I guess I just have to keep writing, and eventually, I'll get through it.