How (and When) to Give Yourself a Break

Photo credit: Tom Wicker on Flickr

We writers tend to be really good at working ourselves to the bone. We spend much of our free time writing/editing/rewriting novels and researching/web stalking/querying/crying over agents and marketing/preparing e-books/researching the market and let’s not forget writing super-fun synopses, and drafting blog posts, and brainstorming new works. We worry constantly about whether we’ve written enough today (or this week, or this month), and whether we’re making enough progress on that WIP, and let’s not even think about what happens when we miss a day—apocalypse.

Truth be told, sometimes we’re a little too hard on ourselves.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but even writers deserve breaks every once in a while. The key is knowing when the right time to take a short hiatus is.

Here are a few signs that you deserve a break:

• You just finished a draft of your WIP. One of the absolute best times to take a break is between drafts—not only do you deserve to rest after working hard to complete a draft, but you need time to develop some distance to your work so that you can edit it more efficiently later. Win-win. 


• You’ve been working on your WIP non-stop for a long time and now you feel stuck. What a “long time” is depends on you, but sometimes the best way to get unstuck is to distract yourself with something unrelated to your work. This is also known as taking a break. 


• You’re tired of your WIP. Now, when I say tired of your WIP, I don’t mean that you’re in the middle of your novel and the shiny new novel glamour has worn off—that bit is pretty near inevitable. What I mean instead, is that you’ve lost the excitement, the love for your WIP. You dread sitting down to write and quite frankly, you’re not really sure you even want to finish this WIP. When that happens, sometimes the best thing you can do is step away from your WIP and take a break. This doesn’t mean forever, but it does mean you might need to distract yourself with some non-WIP goodies to recuperate. 

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready for a break, you now face a new dilemma: what to do? Remember that the point of this whole taking a break thing is to actually take a break. Put that WIP away and try some of these things:

• Read ALL the books. Ok, maybe not all the books, but now’s a great time to catch up on that growing to-be-read list (you do have a TBR list, don’t you? Of course you do). Reading isn’t optional for serious writers, and as a bonus, it’s a pretty enjoyable way to spend some free time. 


• Spend time with your friends and family. Chances are they haven’t seen quite as much of you as they might like—after all, you’ve been busy working on that book of yours. Now you have time to catch up with friends and sit down with your family, so use it! 


• Do something you enjoy (other than writing). Watch a movie. Play ridiculous hours of Assassin’s Creed. Bake. Catch up on your Hulu queue. Whatever it is you really like to do, make sure that you spend time to rewarding yourself with it. You deserve it (seriously). 


• Get some fresh air. This works particularly well when the weather is nice, but we writers have a tendency of spending a lot of time on the computer and very little time doing outdoorsy things—I’ll be the first to admit this is something I succumb to quite often. But fresh air is good for you. I promise. 

Sometimes taking a break is all you need to jump-start your inspiration and writing, and sometimes it’s just a nice little luxury that we deprive ourselves of too often. Whatever the case, make sure you reward yourself with a hiatus every once in a while—then get back to work.

What do you like to do when you’re on a writing hiatus?

When Writing, Take Your Time

Photo credit: listentothemountains on Flickr

We often talk about writing quickly, editing quickly, reading and revising and getting those word counts down as quickly as humanely possible.

We share secrets about how to write faster, how to make the most of our time as writers, how to go, go, go in a culture that only seems to be speeding up.

And sometimes it's not a bad thing, sometimes the difference between 100 and 1,000 words written in a writing session is directly related to mindset or strategy. Sometimes writing quickly is exactly what we need to finish our WIPs, especially when we're short on time.

But sometimes we need to slow down.

I've already written about how for writers, time is on our side, but I'd like to reiterate something that I think is important because it's something that's easy to forget: we all write at our own pace.

Each of us writers has our own journey— for some of us it takes a couple years to meet our goals, for others it takes over a decade. Some writers write four to five books a year, others take two or three years just to complete one novel. There are writers who self-publish immediately and writers who spend years seeking representation, even long after the advent of indie publishing.

What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter how much time it takes for you to reach your goal. It doesn't matter if it takes you a month or a year to write a first draft. It doesn't matter if you spend three years to bring your manuscript to the best it can be, while your writing buddy finishes in a couple months.

What matters is that you take all the time you need to write the very best work that you can.

When you see other writers speeding past you, don't let it get you down. When it takes much longer than you expected to finish your novel, while your family peers over your shoulder, don't let it bother you.

A writer's journey is not a race. It's not about who gets to the finish line first, or how many times they race around you on the track.

A writer's journey is about one thing: meeting your goals on your time. At your pace. At the time that's right for you.

So next time you feel tempted to rush through a writing stage, take a deep breath and remember to take your time. As long as you keep moving forward, one way or another, you'll meet your goals, too.

Have you ever felt like you were taking too long to finish a writing stage? What did you do to combat it?

Inspiration is Everywhere

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in." –Ricky Fitts, American Beauty

It occurred to me not that long ago, that I've been taking something for granted. Something huge, that I'd forgotten and been too caught up with life to notice.

We live in a truly beautiful world.

Photo credit: darkrigel on Flickr

Seriously, we do! It doesn't matter where you live, if you really pay attention to your surroundings, I think you'll also find that there's beauty all around us— not just beauty, but inspiration waiting to be noticed. And we writers could always use a little extra dose of inspiration.

As writers, we need to learn to be alert and aware of our surroundings at all times— we need to be observers so that we can pick up on the little moments that most may miss, but could be the inspiration that starts your next novel. We need to be on the lookout for beauty.

In this case, I don't mean the conventional definition for beauty— I mean anything that could turn into inspiration.

Beauty is a rainy night and when the fog sits over the road and blankets the base of the trees around you and it's just moody enough to sit on eerie.

Beauty is a piece of broken glass on the street that's catching the sun just right.

Beauty is a new parent looking at their newborn for the first time.

Beauty is the morning after the first snowfall, when everything is perfectly pristine and white and quiet.

Beauty is an abandoned warehouse consumed by the Earth around it.

Beauty— inspiration for our writing— it's everywhere. We just need to become aware of it so we can see it.

 

Interestingly, I stumbled (or tumbled, I should say) across this video after writing this post. It’s a wonderful example of our majestic world and if you have the time, I highly recommend you watch a few minutes of it. Enjoy!

Hdr skies from Tanguy Louvigny on Vimeo.

Where do you find inspiration for your writing?

Dear You,

Photo Credit: William Arthur Fine Stationary on Flickr

Yes, you. Reading this right now. I don’t care who you are, if you read this blog regularly, if you clicked the link that brought you here just for the hell of it or if you happened to stumble onto this page by accident.

This letter is for you.

You are beautiful, unique and loved. It doesn’t always feel like it, I know. Some days are rough and though you are part of a body of 7 billion people, you feel absolutely alone. Sometimes those days turn to weeks or months or more and it feels as though you need to fight for every moment in order to be heard, in order to be seen, in order for someone—anyone—to care.

But you are not alone. There are thousands of others out there feeling ugly, feeling forgotten, feeling insignificant and every one of them—EVERY SINGLE ONE—is wonderful and perfect.

You are perfect. Say that aloud: “I am perfect.” No, I don’t mean unflawed—every one of us has flaws—but if you continue to be true to yourself, you need not change a thing. 

Here’s another one. “I am beautiful and loved.” Say that twice a day; once when you wake in the morning and before you go to bed at night. We don’t hear it enough. The world likes to make us think that we must be tall, blonde and a hundred pounds to be beautiful. But they’ve been lying to us. Lying to you. Lying to me.

You are already beautiful and wonderful because you are unique. You are YOU. You have a birthday, a favorite song, a family, and when you close your eyes at night you dream of faraway places and impossible lands. There are days when the tears never run out and days when you laugh so much it hurts to breathe. Inhale deeply for a moment—remember that you are alive, that every breath is a new one, that every second is a moment that is uniquely you.

You are beautiful. You are unique. You are loved. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Enjoy today, friend. Today, just as every day, like you, is special. Go outside and enjoy the fresh air. Smile. Read your favorite book, listen to your favorite song. Treat yourself to something delicious because you deserve it. Smile again—it’s good for you! 

Get in touch with someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, but you wish you had. They’ll be glad to hear your voice again. Maybe they’ll cry a little, maybe they’ll laugh or maybe they won’t answer at all. I don’t know but try anyway because our family, our friends, they are the ones that have loved us from the beginning and will love us until the end.

Now, I know there are some of you without a family, I haven’t forgotten about you. Go out and create your own family. Find people you can trust, people you can hold on to for the rest of your life and spend holidays with. Maybe you don’t have anyone like that yet, and that’s ok. There are good people out there, waiting for you. They don’t know it yet, and it might take some time to find them, but they’re there, I promise, and you’ll know when you’ve found them.

Dear you, don’t let the world get you down. Don’t give up on your dreams and most of all don’t ever forget how beautiful and wonderful you truly are.

Now, go on. Enjoy today. Enjoy tomorrow. Enjoy every day, because every day is new and made for you.

And when you’re feeling down, read this again and remember how wonderful and perfect you really are.