Reminder: Take a Break

Today I wanted to share a very needed but often forgotten reminder: Rest.

You may think that I talk about this too much or that I’m constantly harping on the effects of mental energy. But I don’t care, it’s so important. It’s something that has been on my mind lately and so when I needed a post for today, I thought, why not share a little reminder?

Do not over tax your mind or your body. Writing takes a lot of mental energy and brain power. You have to listen to your body and take breaks when you need them.

I will never understand how my brain works. I will never fully understand why some days I don’t have the brain power to do the most basic tasks, but then other days I write ten thousand words in my WIP (okay, I’ve actually only done that once). I’m constantly trying to understand my own mental energy better and what fills and drains my creative well but, sometimes, we simply have to take it day by day and listen to our bodies.

For instance, last month there was a week or two that I had little to nothing going on in my life and all the time in the world to work on edits. But, for some reason that is still unknown to me, I nearly went through burn out during that time period. I had to cease all edits and work hard at refilling my well. I hadn’t been that close to burn out since early last year… it was kind of scary.

But then this past week when life has been the most hectic, the craziest you could ever imagine (seriously, y’all, it’s been insane), all I’ve wanted to do is work on edits! And the rare moments that I’ve had time to sit down with the laptop, I’ve gotten crazy amounts accomplished! Like, I’ve doubled what I previously had done.

Thinking through this, it makes zero sense to me. If you’re able to understand my wacky mental energy, please enlighten me because I don’t get it. But I think sometimes life is just like that. You think when life’s going grand, it’s the prime time to get a lot done. And when you’re surviving on only a few hours of sleep that you shouldn’t even think about being productive. That’s what I thought. But lately I’ve been proved wrong.

So I’ve decided to start taking it one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time, and listen to what my body needs. When I almost hit burn out mode, I needed to park myself on the couch and read a four hundred page book in only a few days. (True story. And I highly recommend Yesterday’s Tide by Roseanna M. White!!) But when life was insane and throwing every possible curveball, what I needed more than anything else was to sit down with a boatload of edits and make sense of the mess when I couldn’t make sense of my own life.

Please, don’t drive your mental health into the ground because you’re pushing yourself to reach unrealistic expectations. Don’t force yourself to write because you think “it’s the perfect time”… maybe it’s not. Listen to your body and your mind. Do you feel up to writing today? Do you need to spend the day–or even week (like I did)–filling your creative well? Go with the flow and don’t beat yourself up for it!

The best writing comes from taking the time to properly take care of yourself. Because if you’re drained, then your writing will suffer the effects. And if you don’t fill your creative well, there will be no creativity left to transfer to your story.

Rest, dear writer. Your writing will thank you for it.

Your turn!

When was the last time you took some quality time away from your WIP? What fills your creative well? Do you understand your mental energy or is it just as wacky as mine?

Blessings, Allyson

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