Update: The Tally System

I have officially taken two non-writing days. I was buried neck-deep in a six-book series and couldn’t put it down until I read them all. This took me a grand total of three days, but I did manage a blog post on the first.

Get me going on a good series, and I’m a bit of an addict. Books are my drug of choice. But that’s beside the point.

I went from writing every day for months to a full stop over two days. Two days immersed in someone else’s words. While amazing, it allowed no outlet for my own.

So the day after this break? The words that hadn’t been written for those days spilled out in a rush. I wrote more in that first day back than perhaps the whole week before.

I’m not advocating writing breaks as some reverse psychology way to boost productivity. It’s only because I otherwise write every day that the day after was so fantastic. Now, I’m more aware of a desire to ration those off-days so they don’t become a habit, yet I don’t feel a need to “make up” for my break. The tally page is no longer blank, and those tallies don’t feel like failures.

That’s what I’d hoped for, and it’s nice to see the reality bear out.