7 Ways I Tried To Get Back Into Writing After Creative Burnout
At the end of 2021 I was burnt out, creatively zapped. I started, then failed NaNoWriMo, then didn’t write a single word the whole of December. But – I hear you cry – Chloe, didn’t you spend 2021, right up until November working on your edits of The Seawomen including the copy edits and proof reading? Yes, yes, I did.
But I thought I was ready to write something else, possessed by this urge – not to write – but the thought that I should be writing. The issue is, when you start making money from writing you feel like you should be constantly writing, always with the ideas, always with the new manuscripts, always scribbling at something. Well, I wasn’t. And I felt horrible, guilty, fraudulent. Yet, I didn’t want to write. I couldn’t. I just didn’t have it in me.
I didn’t want it to be that way so I decided in January, I would try again, but this time I knew I had to do it differently. I wanted to enjoy writing again. One and half months later I’m writing almost every day and I’m slowly finding the joy again. Here’s how I did it:
1. Setting realistic daily goals
I think I knew it already, but I’m never going to be the writer who writes 3000 words a day, every day. Reading tweets by prolific writers who manage these incredible word count goals was making me impose impractical and unrealistic goals onto myself. Rule #1 of being a writer? Don’t compare yourself to other writers. I’m a big fan of to-do lists, but sometimes under self-imposed pressure I fill my list with things I’m never going to get done in time. So this time round, I’m writing things like “research for 1 hour”, write 500 words before lunch. Things I know I can achieve that won’t leave me feeling like I’ve failed.
2. Short bursts of time
Back in the day when I used to revise for exams (ugh), I would set a timer, revise for 20 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. It stopped my mind wandering and it kept me motivated. I have a terrible attention span. Much like people who work using the Pomodoro technique, I write best in short bursts where the end is in sight. Set a timer for 20 minutes and I get words down, give me an unspecified amount of time and the stretch of empty space leads me to procrastination and zero words.
3. No pressure free writes
The fear of writing The Next Book stopped me from getting any words down last year. I couldn’t bear to write what I knew would be a shitty first draft. I overanalysed everything, killed my darlings before they ever emerged. So I decided I would set a timer for 15 minutes and write whatever I wanted. There was no pressure for it to be anything towards a plot or character, I was free to write something completely unrelated to the project tapping away at me. But through this I found little gems, scenes or a phrase that appeared that helped me work towards The Next Book without pressure. Now when I look through my free writes, I can ditch the rubbish I wrote without any regret and hold onto the good stuff.
4. Tim Clare podcasts
If you’re not already familiar with poet and author Tim Clare, then why not? His writing advice is invaluable. At end of 2020 when I was wobbling over whether I’d get a book deal, I knew whatever happened I would need to keep writing. To do this I looked around for a gentle push to keep me going and there I found Tim Clare’s podcast courses. Last year I finished his 100 Day writing challenge – a 10 minute writing exercise and a little pep talk from Tim – every day for a 100 days. It’s varied and fun and holds absolutely no pressure. You don’t do these exercises with the belief you’re going to write anything good – that’s just a bonus. In January I thought I’d have a go at his other podcast – Couch to 80k (that’s words not running) as a warm up exercise. Inventing character name lists – as many as possible in 10 minutes – writing a paragraph using only one syllable words, writing something purposefully flowery and terrible. This is a great place to start if you want some encouragement and exercises to make you less fearful of the blank page.
5. Using the notes app
I can’t write by hand and I’m not very good at dictation, so writing on the computer all the time can get a bit stale. Because of my disability my arms get tired too, so I’ve been writing more on my phone’s notes app. It feels less formal, less “official” and it’s surprising how freeing that can be for your brain.
6. Monthly goals
You might have heard that writing a novel is more of a marathon than a sprint. If you’ve ever read Annie Lamott’s Bird by Bird you’ll know she recommends taking things in stages. With that in mind I didn’t want to overload myself in January in an attempt to get writing again, I didn’t want to scare my motivation away by trying to do too much too soon. I signed up for The Literary Consultancy’s year long Write Club and my friend Hayley brought me a brilliant Writer’s Diary from Urban Writers’ Retreat. These helped me look at long term goals and organise my writing plans into monthly chunks. I decided to make January my “easing back into it” month, using free writes and warm up exercises without committing to trying to write anything more significant. It was surprising how this time of experimentation and warming up allowed more ideas to flow and eventually a new novel started taking shape in my mind. In February I decided to focus my energy on research and planning and in March I’m going to start writing (slowly) my new novel.
7. Letting bad writing days slide
I’m terrible for being hard on myself when it’s got to the end of the day and all I’ve managed is to write 70 words and google synonyms for “cold”, but sometimes the writing is going to suck or sound hackneyed and life (or Twitter) gets in the way and you end up with a wordcount of zero. Lingering on that bad feeling gets you nowhere. It doesn’t write words and it doesn’t make you feel better about your work in progress. It’s one day, forget about it and try again tomorrow. I’ve tried to apply this mantra to my new approach, and it works. A bad writing day doesn’t mean tomorrow will be a disaster too, and the less you lecture yourself on wasted time, the more likely you are to feel better about a fresh attempt the next day.
If you’ve been struggling to write lately and have felt bad about it, I hope some of these tips help you to find your creativity again.