“If you feel burnout setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have long-term perspective.”
—DALAI LAMA
The problem with being a writer, especially if you love what you do, is that the line between work and the rest of your life is often so slender it hardly exists. Writers are often self-motivated to a fault, notoriously bad at stopping, especially if, like me, you work from home and your “office” is your portable laptop. Add in the fact that the amount of inspiration and ideas you have don’t necessarily match the actual amount of time you have to work on anything, and you may find yourself always squeezing work in and around the crevices of your life.
Sometimes you’ll find yourself plugging along through the work as though an invisible overlord is holding a firebrand just over your head, threatening to stamp the word lazy on your temple if you don’t keep at it.
There is no overlord but you. If you’re self-employed in any fashion, you know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by your projects, even when the pressure is self-created. Oh sure, you have deadlines and clients and book contracts, but none of those are imminent today, certainly not right this minute if your health or well-being are suffering, and even those that are most pressing could probably be granted some wiggle room if it allows you a chance to refresh and nourish.
When you reach overload, your subconscious mind probably tells you so before your conscious mind knows it. Suddenly information can no longer get in; you’ve reached complete saturation. The symptoms of this saturation are manifold: People who are talking to you have to repeat themselves after they catch you staring off into space. You lose your train of thought midsentence. And, if you’re like me, you engage in joke-telling and other goofy steam-releasing silliness.
You might also discover the hard way that you’re burned out: You get sick, fall into a cranky state that makes socializing a chore, drop the ball on your projects, and snap at people. A burned-out brain feels the way muscles do if you’ve worked out too hard—sore and fatigued, every push an effort.
Many writers don’t schedule breaks because writing time can be hard to come by. But breaks are necessary. Crucial even. Everyone needs a break, even if only for a few minutes.
You need to stay vigilant when it comes to burnout. Yes, you can burn out even on something you love to do. A friend of mine posted recently on Facebook about the way her art can preoccupy her to the point of disregarding her physical needs, like food and rest, and make her feel depressed or anxious. You have to impose limits on yourself.
This chapter is all about ways to nourish yourself so that you can continue to be strong, present, and alive for your writing practice and your life. Fatigue, burnout, discouragement, and even just the good hard work of revision are all taxing to the creative mind and heart. You must replenish in order to fulfill your responsibilities and be available for your creative projects. Yes, the ideas may be coming so fast and furious that you may be afraid they will cease if you stop. But if you wear down the machine, it won’t matter what the words are doing; you won’t be able to write them.
Nonwriters don’t always know or appreciate how much work writing can be. Reaching the end of a writing session can feel as if you’ve run a marathon or been through an intensive therapy session. It’s quiet work on the outside, and thus you can’t expect others to understand or provide the care you need to fill the empty well. You can’t look to others to make you take care of yourself—it’s up to you. What’s more, when you put nourishing habits into place, you are more likely to keep up with your practice rather than simply burning down to your last bit of fuel and then having to take massive time off for recovery.
Nourishing your writer self isn’t just about filling up creatively and emotionally after you’ve emptied out either; it’s about learning how to stay ahead of that depletion so that you aren’t always playing catch-up later.
Writers thrive on quiet. Sometimes, even when my family is being absolutely still, engaged in their own projects, I swear I can feel them psychically, and that can be enough to limit my muse. I know some writers who can write to music but just as many who can’t (I fall into the “can’t” camp). Many writers can tune out the white noise of an anonymously public place but not the intimate or personal noise of their family. You may tell yourself you can write anywhere, and I do wish that for you, but most writers I know need a certain amount of true silence in order to get writing done. If you’re a writer who works best in peace, then you must find ways to schedule it and give it to yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure by assuming you’ll have a quiet spot somewhere, only to arrive and find that’s not the case. Know your destinations, keep them in your pocket, and go to them time and time again. Or you may have to cut a deal with a spouse to take children out of the house, ask a roommate to alternate “work” times in your home, or reserve a room at your local library.
If you absolutely have to work around others, use a white noise app or put on your earphones and listen to a continuous kind of music that has no lyrics and moves at a slow cadence—for instance, the music massage therapists and psychologists use with their clients.
Your body is the canary in the burnout coal mine. When burnout strikes, an ailment that doesn’t usually hurt will often light up, electric with pain that isn’t easily quelled, or chronic pains will throb more painfully than usual. As my husband loves to quote, from Cardinal Lamberto in Godfather III, “The mind suffers, and the body cries out.” When this happens it’s time to consider whether you’ve been spending too many hours at the computer—and time to change your habits.
If you’re not great at keeping track of time, set a timer: on your phone, on the kitchen stove, via a friend who texts you, “Stretch break!” It doesn’t matter how, but your body and mind both need breaks from work, even if the work is pleasurable. Breaks are also good for stimulating fresh clarity or helping you if you’re wrestling with a tough writing dilemma. Many times walking away from the writing is the best way to get the ideas flowing again.
I have written into the wee hours of the night and risen as early as 5 A.M. to begin writing. I know writers who write best between 11 P.M. and 3 A.M., and others who simply stay up all night until the work is done. In order to squeeze out the time to write, some writers feel they have to carve into the time normally reserved for sleep. But let me assure you that after too long, depriving yourself of sleep will cut into your mental capacities. Studies have shown that lack of sleep has some pretty nasty cumulative effects on cognition and function. It lowers your stress threshold, impairs your mood, reduces general alertness, and dulls your creativity. Just ask new parents, who stumble and slur through the days of a newborn’s introduction to the family. If you don’t have enough time to both sleep and write, you’re faced with an imbalance in your life somewhere, and you will have to decide the value of your writing in order to shift that balance. Your writing is dependent upon your well-being and health. Don’t skimp on sleep more than once a week—find an alternative time to write instead.
I’m no Jillian Michaels; I won’t yell at you to get off the couch or “get after it.” I don’t want you to feel bad or pressured about an exercise regime. I hope that by now, after reading this far into the book, however, you know that just a little bit of exercise can make a vast difference in your brain power, your memory, your ability to learn new things, and your energy and clarity for writing. Exercise is a key component of a writing practice, whether it’s practicing chair yoga at your desk or going for a good six-mile run before work. Perhaps a better way to think of it is as “movement” rather than exercise. After prolonged periods of time spent sitting, the body needs to move. After too long focused on a screen, your eyes and mind need a break, too.
Did you know that, unlike your blood, which has your heart to pump it, your lymphatic system—a key component to your immunity—has no such automatic pump to keep you healthy? It relies upon your activity to move that lymphatic fluid around and eventually out through the lymph nodes. So when you get up and walk around, dance, swing your arms, skip, or otherwise move, you’re increasing mental clarity, immunity, mood, and creativity. Not bad for a few laps around the block or a dance session to your favorite song.
Even if you are fitting in all the writing you need to do, there’s something about getting away from your everyday responsibilities and routines—particularly to a place that facilitates deep quiet—that is especially nourishing to writers. It’s why places like Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Writer Path, and the like exist: because writers need immense focus and solitude. But in lieu of those big retreats, you can take yourself on small local retreats and even practice mental retreats in the following ways.
The work you do brings with it a series of mental “impressions”—you are, after all, creating people, their worlds, and their conflicts and holding them in your head. These impressions or images carry a sort of energy, and just like in the physical body, where repetitive motions can create “repetitive strain” or injury, I believe the mind needs a break from the same set of images, the same path. If all you’re doing every day is writing an exhaustive novel, consider taking a break to read some poetry or visit a local museum. Tune into your other senses: Put on music, or even watch a quick show so long as it doesn’t interfere with writing time. If nature isn’t your thing, consider a spa, sports, or a café date with a friend.
We have ways of convincing ourselves that if the work isn’t done “now,” civilization as we know it will crumble; most certainly your business or project or family will, right? Nope! This just isn’t true 99.9 percent of the time, especially if you schedule breaks in advance so that you, your family, your work, and your clients know when you won’t be available. And even more, consider the greater plan: At the end of your life, you want to know you did your best work but in the healthiest way possible for yourself and your loved ones.
Most writers I know aren’t always very kind to themselves when it comes to their writing, their talent, and their results. Perhaps you’ve called yourself names, denigrated your own work, compared yourself and come up short to others you think are “better.” You may have even gone so far as to physically poke, pinch, prod, or slap yourself when you feel your work isn’t measuring up. Every time you abuse yourself, you reinforce those negative thoughts. You are a writer, after all; words matter. They get in and can do real harm. Call yourself stupid enough times and see what happens.
It doesn’t matter how you go about it, but try to surround your writing space and the front pages of notebooks with words that speak kind, empowering things to and about you. A friend of mine has taken to posting a note on her computer that says, “Be Awesome!” Another friend, Nanea Hoffman, founder of the website Sweatpants & Coffee, posted an image recently that read, “Kindness is just love with its work boots on.”
Whatever words work for you and make you feel better, more inspired, and happier, put them in front of you: on the dashboard of your car, on your refrigerator, or on your coffeepot. Write them in fancy calligraphy, or type them on an old-fashioned typewriter. Post the quotes of other people who have said kind things to you. Make graphics using Photoshop or apps like Picmonkey, in which you can digitally manipulate images and photos, to post on your Facebook page or Tumblr account.
As early as 400–600 A.D. and well into the 1400s, in Italy and the Roman Empire, important books, often scriptural, were “illuminated” by monks and clergy—painted and embellished with beautiful paints, often gold and silver, and made into mini works of art. I want you to create your own illuminated words, particularly those that have an impact on you. For instance, you might really need to hear that you are Capable or Lyrical or Accomplished. Or you may need to know that your writing is Moving, Powerful, and Evocative. Only you know what words set off that particular fizz of feeling in you.
Words are powerful because they set the foundation for your thoughts and beliefs. For more proof of the power words wield over your beliefs and sense of self, look no further than the placebo effect. Time and time again it’s been shown that merely being told they are ingesting a particular medicine or “cure” can cause people to experience symptom relief even though the “medicine” is in fact a placebo—usually a benign sugar pill.
Think of these kind words as placebos that will make both you and your writing better. We are amazingly susceptible individuals—advertising has been playing on our subconscious desires and fears for decades. Consider “Just Do It,” “Think Different,” and “Finger Lickin’ Good.” So curate your own kind words. Describe to yourself the qualities you’d like to have or embody. Even better, pretend you already are those wonderful things. Start walking the walk before you arrive at your destination.
1. Pick a form of nourishment you’re lacking, and give it to yourself when you feel signs of burnout. Arrange to go on some form of “retreat” once a month. Get an extra hour of sleep, or take a walk.
2. Create a list of words that get your blood thumping with inspiration and energy. Take some time with actual pens, crayons, glitter glue, or even just Photoshop to “illuminate” them and put them up where you can see them every time you write.
What makes your body feel rejuvenated, rested, replenished? The answer is different for everyone. For a lot of people, yoga has this power. Or a warm bath. For some, an endorphin-producing activity does the trick. For others, a few minutes lying down with the sounds of the ocean playing in your earbuds can do it. If you’re not sure, pick something that appeals to you, that you sense will bring you to a state of calm and peace, rest and nourishment, and include it in your weekly, if not daily, routine. Try it now.