My first regular SleuthSayers post went up in late April of 2024, so I missed the opportunity to mark the occasion of my first anniversary as a member of this crew. In that first post, I somehow tried to make a connection between writing and a specific approach to baseball strategy. Since then I've talked about ShortCon, shelf shortages, musical anthologies, Walter Mitty, writing dialogue, the creation of a new Derringer Award, and a number of other topics. Hopefully, some of you out there have enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it, and I look forward to continuing to offer my rambles for a some time to come.
This particular month, I'm finding the shoebox of ideas a little empty. In fact, I haven't really written anything this month.
That's after writing five stories in the first four months of the year, ranging from 2900 to 5800 words. I wouldn't call what I'm going through at the moment writer's block. It's not that I want to write but can't. It's more a matter of having other things to do and no pressing need to get back to the keyboard.
There was a time when this would have bothered--even frightened--me. I would have felt like if I didn't get back to writing ASAP, I might never get back to it at all. I'd be obsessed with the opportunities I might be missing. I'd be thinking about all the interviews I've ever seen with writers who say that ""real" writers write every day. I'd be thinking about Ray Bradbury's advice to write a story every single week, on the theory that nobody can write 52 bad stories in a row.
I've never come close to hitting that mark. The most stories I've ever written in one year is 26; over the last several years, I'm much closer to a one-story-a-month pace.
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| OK, so I don't write as much as this guy |
The difference between the earlier me, who would have been panicked at a month without writing, and the current me, who's handling it fairly well, comes down, I think, to experience. I know that I've been through periods like this before, and invariably come out of them. I know that, sooner or later, I will sit down at the keyboard again and turn something out. A little time away from writing isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might even be a good one.
I'm confident that, somewhere in the back of my head, ideas are bubbling. Sooner or later, one will break the surface. And I understand that "real" writers come in all varieties. Yes, some write every single day. Others need breaks. And that's okay.
Even if it makes for what is almost surely my shortest column so far.
How about you? Do you take breaks from writing? Do you think doing so ultimately helps you?
Joe, I believe every writer has an individual method and rhythm for dipping into the well. This is based on long experience: I've already lived twice as long as Kafka, almost ten years more than Robert B. Parker, and am in the same decade as that in which those two grandes dames Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clarke were still writing until they died. Some of us write all the time, others in bursts. Some of us can write to prompts, others can't. Some of us mind not writing terribly, others seize the day and enjoy other forms of creativity, beauty, and connection with the rest of the human race. Sure, it used to worry me, but only because I thought I "should" be doing what people said "all writers" did. Glad I've lived long enough to get over "should."
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to say if taking breaks helps me or not. I take them because I have to, because of work. But I will offer this anecdote. I once took six weeks off for writing, and I was so jazzed for the first four stories I wrote. But when week five began, I felt depleted and had to force myself to start the next story, reminding myself how much I had looked forward to this time and how hard it had been to come by. But that story I forced myself to write took a lot more work than my stories usually do, likely because I did indeed need a break. I think if your mind tells you to take a break, it likely knows it needs it.
ReplyDeleteI take breaks from writing, mainly because I'm a caregiver, and that takes a lot of time. And life hands you some extraordinary stuff... But when I can, I get back on that horse and ride it as hard and as fast as I can...
ReplyDeleteI'm more likely to experience forced breaks, where urgencies override quiet time alone. I'm thinking a Conestoga wagon with 5000 squeaking wheels. My big worry is losingi the threads of my projects.
ReplyDeleteNature has a cycle that includes a fallow period. That time is necessary for the soil to replenish itself so the next crop will produce enough food to last the winter.
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