How I’ve learned to love down-times…
Even before hubby’s return home, I was suffering from mental and physical fatigue. The daily commutes to visit him and still get housework done wore me down, and I chose to stop writing my current story until I’ve got more active brain cells to handle the task. I realize this runs counter to all that “write every day, no matter what” advice, but I haven’t been following most writing advice from the beginning and still manage to have a lot of books written. I think the advice must be meant for people who have trouble getting words down, and the idea is to write every day so that the brain is wired to produce on demand.
My brain really doesn’t work like that. For one thing, I’m never not writing upstairs. I can be out walking with friends, and one of them will invariably ask me, “what’s wrong?” because I’m frowning with a little knot in my brow. I’m not troubled by anything. I’m just working out dialogue in my head. When I do sit down to empty out the words that have gathered and crowded my head, I end up with several days worth of material.
There used to be a time when I felt great urgency to get ideas down now, now, NOW. I had a muse who would wake me up early in the morning with an idea, and if I slacked off, I’d get badgered by internal voices about dying and not finishing this series or that one. Those guilt trips were pretty effective for a long time, and I often had days where I wrote 10-15K. But the side effects of those twelve hour marathon sessions were that I also spent many days or weeks between projects too mentally drained to dress or feed myself. I called the condition brain drain, and I didn’t like not having the mental energy to do anything. So I began allowing myself some room to slack off. I can still have a random day where my output is over 9,000, leading to an easy meme joke on my social updates. But any day that I do write, I consider 1,000 to be my minimum limit for a good day, and anything above that is a great day.
There are still times when I get antsy because I’m not doing anything, but I quell that sentiment by thinking about my editing queue. I’ve got a lot of books done that are in various draft stages, and if I run out of stuff to write, I’ve still got editing work that can be done in shorter bursts. This leaves me free to play a video game or read a book, or just spend time with hubby and the animals.
Lately, I’ve come to appreciate not writing. It isn’t that I don’t love writing anymore. I do. I love sitting down and creating these fictional worlds where my “kids” act out my internal fantasies. It’s still deeply satisfying to complete a project and add The End to the bottom. I love getting a project polished up enough to publish it to my various vendors, and there’s no part of the creating process that I don’t get some enjoyment out of. But I also like doing other stuff. I like going on book hunts with hubby, or hanging out with friends. I like spending time on social sites doing something besides constantly repeat “buy my book.”
I think part of why I’ve reached this point is the ability to look back at what I’ve already released and recognize that I’ve earned my title as a prolific writer. Sometime in the next year, I’ll have published fifty books. If I stopped writing right now, I’d still have enough material to reach sixty. That’s not too shabby considering my haphazard creation method. I’m not at risk of running out of ideas, though, and even as I work on this one new monster soap opera, my muse is back loading my head with other stories to work on whenever I find the free time to do so. But there’s no urgency to get everything done anymore. If I have to put off a certain idea for a year or two, it’s no big loss. If I forget the idea between here and there, well it must not have been all that great to begin with.
In the last few years, it’s this slacking tendency that’s given me more time to read other peoples’ stuff and do more reviews. I’ve been able to get back into gaming and do reviews for them as well. I spend more time listening to music or gardening, or just going walking with my dog and cat. I like having free time, and when I do come back to writing, I feel more energized and ready to work. I’m not as sore or fatigued from writing like I used to be, and the extra time spent exercising means I suffer less fatigue attacks and depressions.
That’s another thing. In the past, I might release a book and promote it, only to get a handful of sales on the opening month. I’d see that as a failure, and after suffering a depressive funk, I’d spend the next few weeks trying to think up a new idea to pitch. I couldn’t stick with a series that didn’t sell, so I just kept coming up with new pitches. The result is that I now have a lot of ongoing series, and I still have the same sales figures even for the newer ideas.
Where this has led me is to the understanding that it’s okay to only have a few sales per title. I’m just doing this as a way to pass the time, and if someone buys my book, that in itself is a victory. I don’t have as much urgency to keep putting out new ideas, or to whip out the next sequel for each ongoing series. When an idea is ready, I’ll get to work on it. But I’m not going to rush myself when I know the sales results will be low. If only a handful of people are going to read it, I might as well take my time and make sure the story I give them is something unique and worthy of their time.
It’s nice, being able to work when I’m ready, and being able to enjoy the times when I’m not writing. It’s nice being able to read to pass the time without thinking about my own stuff. I like having the time to play through another round of The Last of Us, or to sit down and really listen to a new album instead of having it become background noise to whatever story I’m working on. And I like being able to enjoy myself in the present without worrying about my side projects. It’s liberating being able to step back and do other stuff. And it’s great to not be stressed out over what I’m not getting done by “being lazy.” I’m 40, and if I don’t stop to appreciate what I have every once in a while, I’ll come to the end of my days regretting my choice to be so singularly focused on numbers that ultimately don’t matter. Yes, it’s great when I write over 9K in a day. It’s great to finish a story or to publish it. But if that’s all I do, it’s not much of a life, is it?
So maybe my habits don’t conform to the standard advice to write every day, and maybe that means I’m not being as productive as I used to be. But I am happier now, and I’m not as stressed or depressed about things I can’t control. In my opinion, that’s far more important than whether I can still crank out a book every three weeks.
