When Writing Stops Being Fun

What do we do when writing feels more like a chore than an enjoyment? NaNo guest Alta Krige shares her wisdom on the importance of maintaining and resting when we experience that struggle. 

The second hardest conversation I ever had to have, was telling someone “Sorry. I can’t do this at the moment. I am struggling with depression.” It sucked.

The hardest conversation I ever had to have, was to tell this to myself.

I love writing. I love the process of writing, not just ‘having written’. I love putting words on paper. I love telling stories and expressing ideas. I love the sound of pencil on paper and the rhythmic tap of typewriter keys.

Keeping a writing routine had always kept me grounded when my mental health was acting up. (I have bipolar disorder; it does act up sometimes.) It kept me going.

Journaling had helped me process, stories helped me escape, chronicling it gave me purpose. And just keeping the routine of it, helped me get up in the mornings.

Until it didn’t.

I tried so hard because writing was supposed to make it all better again, but instead, it became filled with anxiety. I had to talk myself through every line.

It’s okay, Alta. Just one word at a time, Alta. You can do this, Alta.

Only I couldn’t. Not this time.

Writing had stopped being fun. It had stopped helping. This time, trying to write was hurting me. What had been an anchor, became a dead weight, pulling me down, down, down.

I am a writer, and writers write. I felt like a failure for not writing.

Then something happened that gave me a bit of perspective. My cousin broke his knee.

He loves jogging, but at that moment, he could not even walk. If he had tried to walk, he would just have hurt himself further.

I was hurting myself, and I had to stop trying to run on a broken brain. Depression is not just about feeling negative emotions, it is problems within your physical brain. There are parts of your brain that shrinks - there are actually less grey matter! There can be inflammation in the brain, just as in my cousin’s wound. 

Neurotransmitters, like serotonin, are the things that physically carry messages. Your brain can’t get messages through. 

No wonder I couldn’t write. This wasn’t something to beat myself up about. Just because my cousin couldn’t run for a while, didn’t mean he was a failure as a runner. It just meant that then, at that moment, he couldn’t run. He still has the ability, the injury must just heal. It didn’t mean I couldn’t write or wasn’t a writer. It just meant I couldn’t write then, in that space of time. I had to give myself a chance to heal.

I had to tell myself that this is temporary. It will pass. I will be able to write again. But I also had to realize that, even if I am never able to write another word, I will be okay. I am enough, with or without writing.

More than a year after my cousin’s injury, he is jogging again cautiously. And I am writing again too. Cautiously. I have not attempted a novel again, yet. Maybe this year’s Nano is still too early. No marathon-sprints on recovering injuries. Some athletes had to miss the Olympics, after all. (Yes, in my metaphor, missing NaNoWriMo is the same as missing the Olympic games.)

But I am writing consistently. Blogs. Articles. Writing Prompts. I am starting to brainstorm a children’s story. (Maybe I will be ready for Nano, after all…)

I need to listen to my body, listen to my mind, check my anxiety levels. Learn when I can push and when I need to pull back.

Writing is fun again. And I want to keep it this way.

Alta Krige is from Johannesburg, South Africa. She believes creativity can change the world, and uses hers to write, direct and choreograph productions for Youth at Risk in inner-city Johannesburg, giving them a chance to tell (and dance) their stories. She loves to speak on topics like creativity, identity and the artist’s calling and blogs. She aims to encourage a new generation to use their gifts to transform their communities.

Top Photo by Braydon Anderson on Unsplash