Burnout

I'm a big believer in taking some time to "refill the well," creatively speaking. Make a list of enjoyable/stimulating things you can do for free/cheap in your area, preferably stuff you haven't done before or in a long while. Make sure to spend a couple hours a week doing this, because new, fresh experiences often spark the imagination.

Also, this is a good time to dive deeply into reading. Just IMO.

read...when I get stuck, I read a novel or two a week...it really helps...I know it sounds lame and sort of obvious, but, I've found it helps me think differently maybe than I had before and I keep going

go do something else entirely.

Take up running, watercolour painting, regrout the bathroom. Anything that isn't writing related.

Do something new.

It will help stimulate you into thinking about things you perhaps wouldn't normally

Your subconscious wants some time off.

What the others said. Take a break. Hit the library. Read that stack of books you've been meaning to get to and do it GUILT FREE, 'cause hey--you're on vacation!

When you're ready to write again, you won't be able to stop yourself.

Echoing the above: get out and live life. Give blood. Go to a movie. Sign up for a Multiple Sclerosis Society 5K walk. Facebook people from high school and reconnect. Your books are about people, right? Find out what they are doing.

I'm a big, huge believer in writing pretty much every last day, but I'm an equally big believe in taking time off when it's really needed. Pace is as important for the writer as it is for the things he writes.

I've always scheduled mine in order to avoid burnout when I can't afford to be burned out. I take two full weeks off twice a year, and deadlines permitting, another eight to ten days off over the Christmas holiday.

And deadlines or not, I almost never write on Sunday. I figure that if God rested on the seventh day, why should I work?

As for what to do with yourself. Get out of the house and go experience some new things. Doing so doesn't take money, or very, very little. I try to do something new, or visit a place I haven't been, every week. It may be going to some weird group meeting at the library, it may be going to a political dinner by a party I don't belong to, or eating at a greasy spoon I noticed while out driving one day.

It may be going to a nearby Civil War reenactment, or mountain man gathering, or to hear a lecture at a local college.

Sometimes it's just going for a long walk and striking up a conversation with whoever I encounter.

Whatever it is, it's out of the house and away from writing. Though it all becomes grist for the writing mill at some point.

Gillhoughly said:

Your subconscious wants some time off.

What the others said. Take a break. Hit the library. Read that stack of books you've been meaning to get to and do it GUILT FREE, 'cause hey--you're on vacation!

When you're ready to write again, you won't be able to stop yourself.

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This

As with anything frustrating where you hit a wall, walk away and come back to it. If reading clears your head and helps, that's cool too. For me, when I have writer's block, the last thing I feel like doing for a while is reading.

Do Something To Relax The Mind

You are not lazy. You just to relax the mind from working too much. Take a few hours away from writing by doing something else that brings you happiness.

You don't want to overload the mind from exhaustion. Don't feel guilty about taking a break for a little while.

Have a great day!

Get two weeks off, leave the computer, READ a ton of books, listen to music, go out for walks.

Start afresh.

Move your body. Outside.

I think I'm suffering from either the early to middle stages of Burnout. I'm about halfway between edits of a short story, and I just can not take it anymore. My writing is starting to suffer, as in become poorer. All of the ideas I come up with are thin, tiny snippets that really lead to nowhere, most of the time cliched to almost an excessive point, and the good ideas, well, I ideas that I've liked and written down are not going well. At all.

I want to write, as in I feel like I should be writing, not I have a story to tell, but I just can't. I would take a break but I'm afraid to for about two or three reasons. One, Nano Camp (for June; I can't do August due to time) is coming up soon, and I'm worried that I won't be able to do write anything during that time either because I'll still be burn out or I took too long of a break. Two, I'm afraid that if I don't finish my edits, I won't ever finish them, and they'll just be sitting there. While I may not submit this story, I want to try to get better at finishing at least some of the projects I start.

However, I'm at my wit's end. I think I have to take break now. Is there any way to ease the process when I come back? Any suggestions? Timed writing? Using prompts (that may coincide in some way with my Nano idea/plot)? Anything?

The language you use to talk to yourself seems awfully harsh and disempowering. Who says you should be writing? Isn't that a choice you get to make for yourself? And who's the one making all these less-than-useful evaluations of your writing? I also see a heavy dose of black-and-white thinking: either you do it now or you never will, your writing must either be awesome or completely awful. With the looming deadlines and your critical evaluations, you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself to perform. It's no wonder your mind is stepping on the break pedal. It's trying to protect you from the Ultimate Doom of Severe and Unrecoverable Failure. When your sense of self and your identity as competent writer is even potentially threatened, these mechanisms step in to stop you even though there isn't any real danger present.

Read The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Learning how to cope with thoughts and feelings such as the ones you are describing is an essential life skill that isn't really taught anywhere.

Orchestra said:

The language you use to talk to yourself seems awfully harsh and disempowering. Who says you should be writing? Isn't that a choice you get to make for yourself? And who's the one making all these less-than-useful evaluations of your writing? I also see a heavy dose of black-and-white thinking: either you do it now or you never will, your writing must either be awesome or completely awful. With the looming deadlines and your critical evaluations, you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself to perform. It's no wonder your mind is stepping on the break pedal. It's trying to protect you from the Ultimate Doom of Severe and Unrecoverable Failure. When your sense of self and your identity as competent writer is even potentially threatened, these mechanisms step in to stop you even though there isn't any real danger present.

Read The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Learning how to cope with thoughts and feelings such as the ones you are describing is an essential life skill that isn't really taught anywhere.

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By should I mean I've seen place after place that writers should be, well, writing. I know that not every tactic works for everyone, and I'm still in the process of finding what all works for me. I just get this sense or this feeling that I should be writing, but I have nothing I really want to say. Maybe it was just ingrained in me so much that I see it subconsciously or something now. I don't know.

I wouldn't say that my writing has to be completely awful or completely awesome. But most of the time, as of right now, I can't get off of page 1 or (X) amount of words without hitting backspace, I feel like I have no plot and can't really string one together. All of ideas are just....gone almost. None of them really work in my opinion, and I really can't get anything to the point that it will.

I do worry a lot if I'm a good writer. That's something that tends to be on my mind, especially lately. Recently, I've been thinking about getting published for the first time, like a few ePubs. Just to see how I like it and what not. I'm just worried my work won't be good enough and/or sell, provided I get accepted where I submit to. Everything I've been writing has just been boring to me and of poor quality like I said. Could it be because I'm writing to publish, not because I think it's fun? My goal kind of changed on me a bit, even though it shouldn't have.

Plus earlier, I kind of switched genres. One, because I wanted to write something else for a little while, and two, part of me, regrettably, fell into that stigma that comes along with writing erotic romance. And I just started thinking all of these "What if" question about what people, outside of the writer's circle and AW, would think. I know shouldn't have, and I know I shouldn't have let it get to me. But it did. I mean I feel kind of bad because I like the genre I switched to. It's fun; I enjoy it. Truthfully, I want to continue writing it. I would eventually probably want to write both genres(or more) if I could. However, I switched over to it for partially the wrong reasons. And I'm not saying anything against erotic romance writers especially since I am/was one. It's just I live in The South(of the U.S.), and some values are the way they are sadly enough. And I was planning to use a pen-name, no matter what genre I write, but I still had this idea of what certain people I know would think.

And now everything I write in the erotic romance genre doesn't really feel interesting to me; it just feels boring. So, I can't tell if I just need to take full break from the genre or what. I'm just not interested in writing it. The other genre, along with a few more I'm interested in, yeah, I still want to write those. But with romance, I'm going back and forth on whether or not I want to.

I don't think writers are wrong in taking a genre's reputation into consideration. The different types of category romance have a less than stellar rep not only because they are raunchy but also because they are rarely word class literature. You can still write daring, sexually explicit novels with great depth and artistic merit without lot of the baggage associated with erotic romance – if that's what really interests you. (See: Anaïs Nin, D.H. Lawrence). But I don't think your choice of genre is as important as writing about things that excite you in a way you can be proud of. If either of these two elements is missing, writing will quickly become a chore.

Orchestra said:

But I don't think your choice of genre is as important as writing about things that excite you in a way you can be proud of. If either of these two elements is missing, writing will quickly become a chore.

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I didn't even think of that. No matter what I wrote I was planning to have romantic/erotic themes in them. But I definitely didn't even bother to think about what I just quoted from you.

Thank you for all the help by the way.

I was so burnt out a few years ago that I stopped writing, cold turkey. My income took such a hit - but my burnout was so intense I didn't even care.

Turns out, the burnout was a sign that I knew my career wasn't going in the right direction anymore and that I had to rethink my whole business model.

We lived in California at the time. We drank a lot of wine. Went for a lot of walks. Then we moved to Germany and my well is filled again. It seems that I reach creative highs when I live in Europe. I've changed my business plan, watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and gave up watching TV.

I guess what I am saying is, you might need to stop writing - as I did. Okay, I didn't start entirely but I only spent about ten hours a week writing - I normally spend about thirty.

I started living outside of writing and I did this for several years. As I lived, my subconscious started giving me instructions- my career is pretty much back on track now and I can't wait to write.

My burnout was so bad, my gut would clench as I'd sit down to write. But there's a way out. Your case may not be as extreme as mine - but even if it is, I now look at burnout as a sign that I am on the wrong path.

Thought I'd at least share my experience. Good luck!

Read, or dare I say it: watch a few good movies.

Reading, as we all know, is inspiring as all hell for most of us. If we see things we like, we want to emulate them. We want to be successful like the writers in the bookstore, and that helps us get back to it. Or, if it sucks, we want to prove we can do better. We know it, we do it, it helps. Sometimes.

But, I like watching movies sometimes when I get burnt out. There's something about a really good flick - the way the narrative moves, the way the characters spring off the screen - that motivates me to write. Even if it's one of those movies (it's Snatch, for me) that just seems so well written that I could never compare - something about soaking up that much story in as little as two hours always helps inspire me to get back to the page.

Hope this helps - good luck!!

I agree with others here, when I fall into a slump I read, maybe watch a movie or two. Try to relax for a day or two, and that usually gets me right into the mood to write again. If not I just start typing, even if I don't want to, even if it sounds bad to me, I type and type. After about two or three hours I will have type something I am satisfied with, and that little moment of satisfaction lifts my spirits enough to get back into it strong the next day.

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm having trouble, too. I recently shelved a novel I've been working on for years and years.

And years.

And years.

And then some more years.

It wasn't my first novel, and I was always writing other stuff while working on it, but for some reason, I became very attached to it. I queried it last year and got a lot of requests for fulls, but in the end, I decided to stop querying and rewrite, because it just wasn't pulling through. I finished rewriting it, revised it, edited it, and polished it this year, and began querying it again. No luck this time around, though I only queried a few agents, some of whom had passed on me last year (I try to avoid using the word "rejection," as it's so negative.). Then it went through beta (which obviously should've happened first), and I realized I needed a break from it. Even though I've written other stuff in the years I've spent on this novel, I've still always, always come back to it. I haven't really allowed myself to grow as a writer. Now I'm spending 100% of my writing time on my new YA paranormal fantasy, and it's not going very well. It's an idea I've had for a long time as well, and I've tried to write it numerous times, and this time it's finally gotten off the ground, but I'm still not liking how it's going. It still feels less than my best. I feel really glum about it and like I'm in a slump. It's exhausting thinking about going through the process again, of finishing and editing and revising and polishing a novel. I feel like the well has run dry, and I'm out of ideas. I want to come up with a new idea, but I can't seem to. I, too, need a break. One of my biggest (other) hobbies is scrapbooking, which has fallen way by the wayside, so perhaps I'll get back into that.

It's just...I still have this strong compulsion to write. I feel so drawn to it. I'm sure we ALL understand that feeling. It's why we DO write. How do we overcome that feeling and let ourselves rest?

Sometimes when writers block hits me, it's as though I no longer feel excited about what I'm doing.

Sometimes I feel like Don Music in Sesame Street who bangs his head against his piano wailing - I can't do it! ( only with me it's a lap top. )

I did something juvenile that helped - I took several paperback novels sat down and made 'covers' for them with art paper. They had new titles and a name down the spine - mine! Looking at the fake paperbacks with my name on them , sitting on my bookshelf gave me a lift.

Love this idea!!! Wish I could draw

Silver-Midnight said:

I want to try to get better at finishing at least some of the projects I start.

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That's really good. The best way to do it, IMO, is to make a commitment, at some point, to finish everything you start. Set everything aside, and finish one thing. It can be lame, as long as it's finished. You build from there.

Orchestra said:

Who says you should be writing?

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Should is about standards and requirements. "You should go to college." "Yous should get a job." But you *can* live without these things. Likewise, spending time writing is a choice. It's more accurate to say "I want to write."

Silver-Midnight said:

By should I mean I've seen place after place that writers should be, well, writing.

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Another way of expressing that is: A writer writes. That *is* different from "A writer should be writing."


In terms of actual writing, sometimes its hard to do things like writing, painting etc, even if and when you want to.

It helps to come up with some kind of absolute minimum. I know someone who is writing a novel now, who worked a 4 day week, started a story and took a notebook to work and promised themselves to write at least one sentence of the story till it was done. So start by choosing a minimum that is 'doable' by you.

I know another person who, when things are really dry, does writing exercises.

A writing habit can be slow to build up, but just keep trying things until you find some minimum *sustainable* writing habit. ie 'I can call myself a writer as long as I: write a sentence a day on a story, or do three exercises a week.'

The creative battery needs time to recharge. As your writing habit gets more steady, it's likely you will need less time to recharge. You'll also learn about the ebb and flow of your energy and workstyle, that's important, too.

I recommend "The Artist's Way".