Hello friends!
If you’re a writer like me, I assume you’ve experienced everything from writing burnouts, writers block, lack of motivation and everything in between. No one can keep up their hobby or job forever without running in these things; it is simply apart of life whenever you dedicate a lot of time and effort into one thing. For me personally, I’ve been experiencing these things recently after I spent the last six months working on getting my book “Love, Elias” ready for publishing. It was all I thought about, all I worked on, and in the end I got it all done and it was worth every sleepless night. However, this resulted in a huge writing burnout, one that I thought I could fix pretty easily. I had a trilogy that I had been dying to work on, so as soon as I was done with “Love, Elias” I turned to the trilogy, expecting my motivation to soar. I was wrong, and I was disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to return to this project that I loved and was really excited for. But I took a step back and realized that I was denying myself the opportunity to take a break from writing. Writing is my favorite thing to do, so it’s difficult to imagine why I would need to take a break from something I love so much. But as a writer, taking a break from your current wip (work in progress), or from writing in general, is really important to improving your motivation and passion for writing.
Here are a few specific reasons why. Number 1 being, it will help prevent burnouts later on. Sometimes I start a new wip and I throw all my energy into it, and I don’t give myself the chance to have a break because I think I’ll never get tired of working on it. I can’t imagine wanting to stop, so I keep going until I reach my limit and the writing burnout hits me way harder than it would originally if I had taken a break. Writing burnouts will always come, but I have experienced the worst burnouts I’ve ever had because I went into a wip with too much ambition and wasted all my energy on it in the beginning. I’ve learned to give myself multiple breaks throughout the course of me working on my current project, so that my motivation for it is more long term, and I experience burnouts less often.
Number 2, it will give you a new perspective on your writing when you come back. One of my current wips has been driving me crazy because I can’t seem to figure out the plot and organize it to flow nicely. I know that if I step away from it for a while and come back to, my perspective on it will completely change. I will come back with new ideas and a better understanding of what I can do to make the story better. Taking a break can act like a reset for your brain, and allow you to return to your writing with a fresh pair of eyes.
Finally, taking a break can encourage you to focus on things outside of writing. It’s very easy for me to get lost in my imagination and my stories, and it causes me to lose passion and energy for the other things in my life that I also love. I love reading, video games, croqueting, and other arts and crafts, but my focus shifts away from those things whenever I get distracted by my writing. Life exists outside of the worlds in our heads, as disappointing as that is. It’s important to remember the other important things that make us happy and that we have passion for. My goal this winter is to try and focus a lot on reading, as I’ve neglected several books in order to focus on my writing, and it’s time I got back to it.
Taking breaks from your writing doesn’t mean you love writing any less, nor does it mean your passion for writing will disappear if you take too long of a break. Your stories will still be there when you want to go back to them. In order for my love for writing to last for years to come, I have to remember to give myself the opportunity to step back and take the pressure off me. Writing is one of the hardest jobs out there, and taking a break from it is a form of self care. Take care of your body and your mind, and when you are ready, you can return to your stories and make them even better than they were before.