The topic of "chronic writer's block" is an ironic one for me to choose, and if any of you have read my first blog post, you know why. On May 11th of 2021, a horrific sense that I was no longer a writer washed over me. Word counts felt like mountains. Plots felt just out of reach. Being a prolific novelist in my teens, this came as a dreadful shock, and I felt like a part of me was being stripped away by some unknown force.
Looking back, I want to discuss what Book Botany has taught me about creativity and burnout—and what I'd tell myself years later.
Creativity
1. Habit is different from labor.
Forming habits can still take work, and making writing a habit is important for consistent inspiration and output. But there's a key difference between habit and labor: "habit" denotes a tendency, whereas "labor" denotes expenditure (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary).
If writing is straining, you're laboring. Sometimes it's okay to push through, but labor shouldn't be your habit or you'll burn out. At the same time, if all we do is take breaks, someday we won't return to that blank page. What we need is a settled tendency to write.
2. Stimulation supplements habit.
The less I think of writing as a labor, the more I think of it as storytelling, and storytelling is pervasive all throughout our lives. Exploring the Scribe/Artist Spectrum has taught me that I need outside influence on my writing. If I swing too far as a Scribe, I get stuck in my characters' heads and I don't get inspired by real people because nothing else feels as real. If I get sucked into being a hardcore Artist, real life feels gray in light of the colorful tale I've built, so I escape and stay snug in my world.
On either end, if I do this, I'm relying almost exclusively on myself for inspiration, and—even armed with things like Pinterest and Spotify—that's not sustainable! I can't just write habitually. I need to stimulate my creativity in other ways to ground my writing and give it vibrancy. I personally love admiring nature and meaningfully interacting with people.
Burnout
1. Burnout = imbalance.
Burnout happens when the scales are tipped too much for too long. Maybe you've spent too long believing labor is habit. Maybe your creativity is under-stimulated, or you're stuck in your own story and can't seem to get out. For me, it was a combination. I started to see my writing progress as a chore, and I swung way too far on the Scribe side of things! I lost sight of storytelling because I was too busy staying true to whatever I saw or felt in my head, and suddenly the manuscript lacked pace, immersion, and unity. It lost its magic.
We can do all we can to prevent burnout, but sometimes it still shows up and that's okay! Burnout can be a way for your body or brain to make you aware there's something out of balance.
2. Writer's block happens off the grid.
The metaphorical electrical grid, that is. When you get writer's block, you're deep in the woods with no map and no GPS. You can get lost in hundreds of ways, but you can find your way out in just as many. Sometimes you find the map in your glove compartment or ask for directions; sometimes you follow the smoke in the sky and hope they're friendly. Whatever the case, the only way to stop being lost is to redirect yourself.
What I mean: picking your story back up isn't the only thing overcoming writer's block can lead to. When I faced chronic writer's block, I realized my best redirection was to stop. My way back onto the road was to pursue editing more and stop writing my stories altogether (at least for now). It looks different for everyone at different times, and I think writer's block is too fickle to give universal advice about it because there's never an end-all solution.
I want to encourage you that even if you don't make it back to your story, having to redirect doesn't mean you failed! I still write through my blog, and I love stimulating my creativity with graphic design, editing, and maybe a couple story ideas in a pot set to "keep warm." My experience has prepared me for if I ever wanted to get back into writing in the future.
The Watering Can
I'm calling this the watering can because taking care of your sense of creativity is essential to effective writing and editing alike. Without the appropriate amount of water, a plant will dry and burn. "Practical" tips can sometimes be too niche, and I think we're smarter than we often take credit for. To me, the best way to cultivate creativity is to refresh our mindset about it. You're now equipped with three truths to consider:
To be consistently inspired and productive, we need to have a settled tendency to write.
Real-life stimulation breeds vivid creativity.
Burnout indicates imbalance.
When we face writer's block, we need to redirect ourselves.
These aren't meant to give you the answers. They're here to give you the right questions to ask. When I struggled with chronic writer's block, I didn't even know where to start. I stared at my measly 65-word progress on May 11, 2021 and thought, Why isn't this working the way it used to? I messaged a close friend and got some great advice, but the feeling—"I'm not a writer anymore"—persisted like poison. Why? I kept wondering. Why is it still here?
On May 11 of this year, I launched my blog and social media. Exactly two years later, I know better now. "You're tired out," I'd say to my past self, "and you don't write for the fun of it anymore. You don't know it yet, but you valued 'realism' more than you valued 'storytelling', and your plot suffered for it. Right now, you value your world more than the one you live in, and now you can't find inspiration. You got lost on the way."
I'm sure that depressing message would have made me feel so much better. But when my younger self would inevitably glance back at that blank page, I'd give her the watering can and tell her the story's just drying out—and all it needs is a little water.