I’ve had more trips than usual this past summer and as things wound down, I’ve had time to reflect on the value of taking breaks.
When a project is going—well or not—it’s advisable to carry on, full steam and all that. But there is a time to take a break. I typically advise a break from writing when the writer is burned out. Sooner or later we all get there—fed up with our characters, sick of our plot, bored with our world. Even when we know the project is good, sometimes we don’t have the stamina to climb the writing wall before us. In that instance, a break is the best gift we can give ourselves. “Put the pen down and step away from the paper!”
Or step away from the keyboard.
Put the pen down
and step away
from the paper.
Another good time for a break is when the project is stifling the writer’s creativity or growth. I had a mentee who had been working on the same novel for quite a few years. We were a year or two into things when I told him it was time to put it aside. Even a passion project with tremendous potential can cause trouble. I wanted my mentee to play in the field of the written word. I assigned him short stories so he could vary the world, the characters, the POV, the voice from piece to piece. Besides variety, tackling short projects gave him a sense of completion. And those short stories felt light weight compared to the novel he’d been dreaming up for decades. His investment factor was low, and mistakes didn’t feel costly. This wasn’t a break from writing, but it was a break from a writing project. And when he went back to the novel, he had earned his wings.
Those breaks the writing imposes on the writer.
The other kind of break, the life breaks and the vacation breaks are another thing altogether.
I’ve had my share of life breaks, and more than a few editing clients have had to stretch things out for more than a year when life gets messy. I have two thoughts on this and they’re both simple.
Life happens to all of us, and when it does, we gotta do what we gotta do. Babies, illness, care-taking a loved one, big moves, etc. all suck up time and energy. Whether positive or negative life changes, they get in the way of writing. No shame. No guilt. Get back to your writing as soon as you can.
When you set your priority to “Writing” or “Finishing that novel” and don’t make time for it, however, you aren’t living a life true to yourself. You’re putting your priorities and your writing on hold for something (or someone) else. That’s when taking a break hurts not only the writing, but also the writer.
Which brings me to the other kind break from writing, the vacation. This is the kind I’ve been having (and struggling with) lately. It’s been good, the travel, the camping, the backpacking, the kayaking. Really good. But I don’t have the time or energy to sit down and write at the end of that kind of day. I didn’t even bring paper or a book on the Superior Hiking Trail. It would have added too much weight to my pack, and experience has taught me that carrying it and using it are not the same thing. I did bring a notebook and pencil on our kayak camping trips, a simple spiral one so I wouldn’t have to worry about it getting soaked. The notebook was “just-in-case.” Like my PFD (life jacket). And like my PFD, it got very little use and none of it life-or-death.*
The backpacking trip proved that I won’t die without paper and pencil at hand. But it can feel life-threatening to be without them, and at the end of the trip, disappointing to have not used them. Besides the fact that writing tools seem to be some kind of security blanket for me, vacations without writing extract me from my worlds. One intentional and one accidental. One for the better and one for the worse. Everyone wants a break from the day-to-day home and work life. But as writers, unless burned out or flailing creatively, we shouldn’t break from our stories.
Lighting the fire.
After taking a break,
rekindling the
creative flame
is a kind of prostration.
I feel the loss of connection with my characters, world, and plot after time away from my work. It takes days to once again get in good with my story. That means extra days of writing productivity are lost. I return to the page hungry for immersion, but I fumble the key at the lock. I need to return to my journal and review notes, ask questions, answer them on the page, rekindling the flame so recently burning between writer and story. It’s a sort of prostration:
You’ve neglected me.
“I know. I didn’t mean to.”
You’ve lost the voice. My voice.
“I’ll get it back. Give me a day or two.”
Do you remember where you left me? What comes next?
“I have my journal.”
Did you even think about me while you were away?
“I did.”
It is late October now. The sun sets at 6:15, already painfully early, but I don’t mind. It means my camping season is ending and the dark hours are perfect for making amends.
After all, the dark hours lend themselves willingly to immersion in another world.
* I always wear my PFD while kayaking. That said, I only need it to perform it’s intended function if I’m in the water. So far that has only happened intentionally, when practicing rescues or rolls. Hence, I’m wearing it just in case I go in unintentionally and, so far, its use has not been in a life or death situation.
