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Writer's Exhaustion

I don't think that writer's block is a thing. Or at least it's frequently misdiagnosed. However, I do think that exhaustion is a thing. And let me say, I am exhausted. Life is killer right now, but that innate Ned to write still gnaws at. Yet, whenever I try to write my brain just quits. Then after a few minutes of staring at my screen I nod off, at 9:00 PM. I even get enough sleep at night. So I have to ask, do you ever experience this and if so other than normal resting procedures how do you become less exhausted.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Water. Lots and lots of water. Also naps, if you can afford it. And exercise. Without these three things, I can't function, which means not writing. Since writing is my livelihood I have to take care of my body. Yea, there are days when I'm flat out burnt out. But on those days ask yourself if it's true burnout or if you've been feeling this way for some time. If it's the latter, what have you been doing differently? Sometimes it's something as simple as not drinking water (serious).

TLC should come before anything because it's the only way to access imagination. :D
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Writing tends to be highly emotional for me. I pour a lot of myself into one story. Weeks. Months spent on a short. I live in my characters and try to feel what they feel, then I go back and make it worse for them.

By the end I'm wiped. I need to take a few weeks between stories just to emotionally calm down a bit before I can gear myself up for the next one.
 
Hi,

I live with both writers block and exhaustion. I'm dealing with at least three cases of block at the moment - three nearly completed novels that I've stopped work on in the last few months because I have absolutely no idea what comes next. I rack and I rack and I rack my brains, but nothing seems right. So I keep starting new ones!

As for exhaustion, yes. Not at the moment, but every time I finish a book and publish it, it's game over for a time. It's not the writing that drains me. I love that. It invigorates me. But the editing! Beta reading! The formating! The cover! The publishing process! The entire thing drains me as nothing else can. And its months on each book. So once it's done I'm whacke. I don't want to write. I don't want to even look at a book. And I'll probably spend days playing computer games until finally the joy of the writing part returns to me.

So you're far from alone.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
For me, I usually just force myself to write or do something writing related. I usually do one of three things, force myself to write at least 250 words, do a quick edit of what I wrote last day, or I jot down a bunch of quick notes in point form about how I want the next scene to play out.

After I do one of these three things I find that if I still don't feel like writing, I call it a day. But more often than not, I've broken through and exceed the 250 word minimum, the editing has sparked ideas and I proceed to write, or jotting the notes down has made me want to write the scene out or at least start it.

I find that writing is about momentum. If you're not in motion, you tend to want to stay that way. If you're in motion, it's the same. So the trick is to find ways to keep in motion. That's why I have those three things to do.

If I've been writing a lot, I tend to cut myself a lot of slack when I just don't want to do it. But if I haven't been writing, I bring out the tough love question. Do I really want to be a writer and get published or do I just like the idea of it?

I tell myself if the answer is the latter, then I should go do something that makes me happy and not beat myself up about not writing. If the answer is the former, then I should get my ass in the chair and start pounding keys, because if I ever get published, and this turns into my job, then it's my job.

And like all jobs, there will be days where I just don't feel like doing it, no matter how much I love it. But I don't think the publisher that's paying me will appreciate the book not getting written because I just didn't feel like writing.

Any way that's the way I get myself going.
 
I get it a lot. A lot of times its bad too, inescapable. One thing I do is force myself into a walk. That can stem it off for a few hours, or if I'm too tired to write I brainstorm. Those are my tools and brainstorming makes the writing all the more simple to accomplish.

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