Here’s Your Permission to Take a Writing Break

As some of you may know, I got a publishing job about a month and a half ago as a marketer for an indie romance publisher. It’s been so much fun getting to work with books in a whole new way, and I’m loving it so far. However, because so much of my focus has been on my new publishing job, writing has taken a bit of a back seat.

Initially, I was upset that my writing was stalling, because I was making such good progress on my book. But I’ve come to realize that that’s just life. Sometimes you have more time/motivation to write, sometimes you just don’t. And that’s OK. It’s about letting it happen. Letting yourself go with the ebbs and flows of life, rather than always trying to force it.

Thankfully, I’ve been writing for long enough now that I know ebbs are never permanent. I’ll always come back to writing. So this pause doesn’t stress me out as much as it might have in the beginning.

When I got my publishing job back in March, it was a huge adjustment. I had to shift my schedule to accommodate this new responsibility and figure out how/when/where to best use my energy.

At first, I tried to keep up with my habit of writing 1-2 hours every weeknight. But I quickly started dreading it. I was getting burnt out from forcing myself to continue “working” into the night. It felt like work never ended, and my creativity was shot.

I knew that something needed to change. Because if I wasn’t having fun with writing anymore, what was the point? Sure, being an author requires discipline. It means sometimes forcing yourself to write even when you don’t feel like it. But I was forcing myself to every. single. time.

So I decided to get rid of my writing habit and let myself do whatever I wanted to do in the evening to replenish my energy. This could be watching a show, reading, doing a craft, going on a walk, getting outside, working on my Substack. Or writing. But only IF I wanted to. Only when it felt fun.

I think this was probably the best thing I could’ve done, for both my mental health and my writing career in the long-run. I started looking forward to each evening instead of dreading it, and I was just overall enjoying life more.

I will say, when I first started doing this, I basically wasn’t writing at all. It was never my evening activity of choice. It felt a little bit like my method was backfiring, but I figured that it was better that than the alternative of burning out.

But then something shifted. I slowly started to write more. For fun. Turns out, I just needed a break. And now I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The biggest lifesaver for me during this rough patch was having a writing community. I wrote with two of my writing friends once a week, and it kept me anchored to the writing world.

It was interesting, because all three of us were really struggling with our writing at the same time. We would show up on the call and talk about our current writing struggles and then write. It was really nice having people who understood what it was like, and I didn’t feel so alone in it.

The other benefit of our writing sessions was that it kept me from stopping completely. I wasn’t writing apart from these sessions, but even just doing it one hour a week kept my foot in the door. It kept me connected to my book. And now that I’m ready to write more regularly again, it’s easier to get back into it.

So where am I at currently? Chapter fifteen. Which is precisely one chapter further than where I was at the beginning of March. So, yeah, I’m not exactly speeding through my manuscript. But I feel like I have a much healthier relationship with writing, so if that means having to sacrifice my progress from time to time, I’m OK with that.

Chapter fifteen is going pretty quickly, as I’m getting better about not changing things just to change them. This chapter didn’t need much work, so I’m not going to work on it much. Seems simple enough, but that was something I really had to learn in these line-editing stages. Because at first, I thought I had to make changes. That I had to improve things.

But now I know that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Because if I try to, I’ll probably just make it worse. So I’m pretty much leaving this chapter as is, and hope to finish it in the next few days. And then it’s on to chapters 16 and 17, which are my favorite chapters in the whole book. It involves a pool party. And yearning. Hehe.

Alright. That’s all the writing updates for now. I’m sure I’ll have lots more to share soon, now that I’m getting into the swing of writing again. But in the meantime, happy writing!

And if you’re struggling with your writing right now, just know that it’s OK. It won’t last. This is your permission to pause, reevaluate, and find the joy in it again. Wishing you the best of luck (:

How do you usually get out of a writing slump? Let me know in the comments!