There might come a time in your writing career that you meet Writer’s Block. Say hello to the symptoms. 😀
You’re drained. There comes a moment in every writer’s career when they’ve pushed themselves so hard to accomplish things that their mental and emotional self can’t keep up anymore. You tire easily and can’t see yourself writing another word.
Writing no longer holds your attention. There will always be those moments when you are working on a story or article and you realized that it no longer interests you. But writer burn out is when you start to lose interest in your work and you can’t see yourself continue with anything else.
The thought of writing fills you with dread. Working becomes harder and harder. Writing becomes stress in overdrive. You get sick just thinking of the blinking cursor on the page.
The good news, I have 6 Tips to Help you Avoid Writer’s Burn Out.
1) Do something active. If the words refuse to come, doing something active can help to reboot your mind or give you a chance away from your writing to think about it. Take a walk, exercise, or do some housework.
2) Explore new topics or styles of writing. You can also change topic, stories, scenes, or even genres. A change of scenery, even if it’s just in your writing, can help stave off writer burn out.
3) Schedule one or more days off each week. This mini vacation will not only allow you to catch up on the house or yard work, but give you a break to renew your batteries and keep you from overworking yourself.
4) Take a break. You can take a spend some time with family or friends, 10 minute break, a reading break, a stretch break, meditate, take a nap, or watch a movie.
5) Don’t overload yourself. It can be so easy to take on more than we can handle. Between the writing, promoting, blogging, other jobs, housework, and social networking, it can be too much if we don’t space it out. Scheduling when to do something and giving yourself app time to accomplish it can keep stress at bay.
How do you ward off writer’s block? What to do when you already have writer block?
Thanks for this Stephannie…been feeling a little blocked and drained lately:) I think part of my problem has been that I’ve been overloaded with social media and I need to take more breaks:) Appreciate the post…helpful advice!
I just cut off all social networking and online running around for about a month. I was ready for a drop in book sales because I wasn’t openly promoting my books, but I can honestly say that nothing has changed. 🙂
Now the only things I do online now is write blog posts, answer comments, and read the few blogs that I enjoy and comment on them. It’s been quite freeing to the creative side of my brain and allowed me to start writing again. Before I was only editing my book and it was going nowhere fast.
Because I don’t write to anyone’s spec but my own (so no deadlines, etc.), I only write what I really want to write.
Then (and not all agree with this) I plot it out with all major plot points, rough character arc, and a pretty good idea of what scene goes where. Again, nothing is written in granite and it can change, but at least I have a path.
And if a particular scene is sticking, I jump to the next one. Continuity gets fixed AFTER the first draft.
Plus, if the option is taking a break and doing housework, writing wins all the time.
Or research! I’d rather do book research than clean house. 😀
Sometimes all it takes is writing down one word. Then a sentence. It starts the mind thinking about it.
And sometimes it doesn’t help at all. 😦
I agree about having a scheduled day off. This allows me to do other stuff guilt free and I always come back to writing with more vigor. But, if I’ve had a really bad day and would rather sit on the couch and watch Xanadu while drinking never ending tea and eating a planet of chocolate, well I let myself do that 🙂 I always get back to writing the next day. But, mostly I love writing, and it’s no real chore at all.
My hubby loves Xanadu. LOL
Scheduled days off are good for the brain. The rest allows a recharge of creative batteries. 😀
I’ve had it in the last year or so that because of personal troubles, the creative spark needed to write just isn’t there from time to time. It does pass. Eventually…
It does. Sometimes we wish it passed sooner rather than later. 🙂