Refreshing the Creative Well

Writers need hobbies (besides World of Warcraft and computer solitaire). While it's important to get your butt in the chair and write as well as do a lot of reading, there's more to the writing life than just locking yourself away and tapping at that keyboard endlessly.

We have to get away from the writing every now and then.

We need to do something to refresh the creative well, (or, as I've also heard it put, "a writer will never be any good unless they get out from behind the desk and live"); to free up our creative side for play, or at least let our mind focus on something besides writing (which means that while reading is important and a great hobby, it doesn't really count as "refreshing the well" because we've still got our nose in a book and our head in a story).

In the summer, I go fishing a lot. In the fall and winter, I go hunting (deer, squirrel, or coyote; and hopefully this year, wild turkey). Being outdoors does a great job of "refreshing my spirit" and gives me a lot of story ideas (like the year I caught two fish on one hook).

And while I don't exactly have a green thumb, I do have a plant addiction (No,not smoking them, thank you very much!). I spend a lot of time propagating and planting, indoors and out. I have my yard planted with some of my favorite plants (honeysuckle, hops vine, bleeding hearts, bluebells) and I'm trying a container garden this year (tomatoes and zucchini). Next year, I have space for a real garden all plotted out.

On the more artistic side of things, I like to do bead work and crochet. Yeah. You heard me. Vampires and dismemberment in my stories, doilies on my nightstand. Wanna fight about it? I've been thinking about combining the two and doing some kind of zombie-crochet afghan, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Or maybe some beaded zombie earrings.  ;)

Whatever hobby I do, I've found that when I step away from the writing, even if for only a few hours, I come back to my writing feeling refreshed and excited about it again. Maybe there's something to that old adage, "absence makes the heart grow fonder."

What do you do to "refresh your creative well?"