Writer Woes

This post was supposed to be about burnout. I’m burnt out. You’re burnt out. We’re all burnt out because the writing community is full of passionate, empathetic souls with big dreams who have to exist in a drab reality where people have to pay bills and make dinner and take the kids to school and socialize so we don’t wither away in our reading/writing/working caves. *deep inhale*

So this post was supposed to be about burnout.

But as I’ve sat here for several evenings in a row staring at a mostly blank document that only had the sentence “burnout can suck it” at the top, I realized that not only am I feeling burnt out, but I now also have writer’s block. Great. 

Realizing you’re pinned under the thumbs of the two most notorious villains in every writer’s narrative is discouraging at best, and mental breakdown-worthy at worst. The two evils seem to join forces to cultivate a perpetual cycle of stress, procrastinate, stare at blank document, self-deprecate, order Crumbl Cookies, put off writing for another day. Rinse and repeat.

As it turns out, burnout and writer’s block have a lot in common—they’re antagonistic besties, just waiting to steal your lunch money and call you a nerd.

After a little Googling (we’ll call this research, though I was definitely avoiding doing any actual writing. See above.) to see what causes writer’s block, I started noticing language similarities between the descriptions of what causes writer’s block and burnout. 

Exhaustion. Anxiety. Overcommitment. Financial pressure. Perfectionism. Depression. Fear of failure.

Any of those look familiar? Same, girl. Same.

I suppose it is only natural that inspiration and creativity aren’t going to be overflowing when the brain is injecting itself with high doses of cortisol and flinging itself right into fight, flight, or freeze mode.

So what do we do when burnout turns into writer’s block, sending us spiraling down the proverbial writing toilet? When we are on a deadline and staring at blank screens, what can we do to get the words flowing again?

1. Change your writing modality: 

When writers are feeling stuck, changing what they are actually writing with can be the change of stimuli needed to spark new ideas. Take a break from the computer and bust out the cute journal and fancy pens, jot some notes down on your phone, doodle, or even talk out where you are at in your story with others. I know stepping away from the screen and complaining to my husband about my inability to write has actually sparked ideas that got me typing again.

2. Give yourself permission to suck:

I said what I said. Let your writing suck. Give yourself permission to write the worst jumble of words you’ve ever written. Perfectionism is one of the top inspiration killers out there. So when you find yourself panicking because nothing is sounding right, give yourself the ok to just slap words on the page. Let future you worry about the quality, and give current you an opening to move past the mental block and write. 

3. Don’t edit as you go: 

Seriously. Stop rereading every paragraph and trying to fix every error you find. Once you start writing, don’t give your brain the opportunity to over analyze and lose steam. Go ahead and write those run-ons, splices, and danglers, and let the typos live to see another day.

4. Skip it!

Sometimes it’s best to just wave the white flag and jump over the part of your writing you are stuck on. For example, I wrote these tips before going back and writing the beginning of this post. I couldn't figure out how to get the ball rolling so I started looking up articles about burnout and writer's block. That led to ideas about how to get out of a writing slump, and next thing I knew, I was typing again. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to write the rest of this post, I'll have a better road map for my writing. If you are stuck on a particular scene or chapter, try setting it aside and skipping to something else. The section that is temporarily breaking your brain will be there tomorrow. Or tomorrow's tomorrow. Who knows, maybe writing a scene in chapter twenty will knock loose inspiration for chapter three. 

5. Rebalance your pie: 

This is not as ridiculous as it sounds, but allow me to share a piece of my upbringing to explain this one. Growing up, my mom would always remind us to “balance our pie” when we started to fixate and stress over particular aspects of our life such as school, work, friends, family, hobbies, etc. She explained that our lives can be made into a pie chart where each slice is a different part of our lives. While those slices aren’t all going to be even, and the amount dedicated to any given part may change throughout life, it is important to dedicate parts of the pie to things that fill our hearts and make us happy. Sometimes we cut out too large a piece for one area of life, and it makes the room left for everything else way smaller, or it might remove space for something entirely. Imbalance can lead to suffering. If we have half the pie dedicated to writing, for example, we may not be making space in life for things like rest, family, friends, or hobbies. This inevitably leads to burnout which, as we’ve seen, can lead to writer’s block. This is the most common advice for writer's block and burnout alike: make time to rest and fill your tank with the things that bring you peace and joy.

I hope it brings you comfort to know that every writer out there EVER has battled burnout and writer's block. I hope it brings you comfort to know this post was harder for me to write than I would have liked, but look! There are words here now! 

So, go forth and write… or don't. Maybe go take a walk or drink a glass of wine. Hug your dog. Whatever you need to do, then go write.