The end of ennui
In December, I had a bad case of ennui. I'd been going at my novel, Road to Hell, pretty hard for several months to get it finished before the end of the year. Add to that, my contract employment really needed some additional hours from me to help finish their projects before the end of the year. When I finally submitted the project, I felt like I was supposed to immediately start on something new. Instead, I updated my Facebook status a dozen times.
For me, my brain needed a vacation from writing. I often see writers on Twitter and on their blogs telling people to write every day. I don't. I generally do 2 major writing stints a week plus 2-4 smaller writing days. And, when I say "writing", I mean the entire parcel that comes with being a publishing author: writing new material, editing (which, for me, takes about 3x as long as writing the initial draft), marketing, promotion, updates, etc. There's no way that my brain will let me do that every single day without, eventually, needing to recharge my batteries.
So, I took 3 weeks off writing. I did some website updates and sent out a couple of posts about Flying Kite launching. Other then that, however, I didn't do any writing, et al. And it was wonderful. I read. I did jigsaw puzzles. I played video games. I went shopping. And I did it all without guilt.
Today marks my return to "work", if you will. I head back to the contract job tomorrow and today marked the return of my usual schedule. I was able to sit down and edit two chapters of my (still) untitled paranormal mystery in three hours to be at a place where I am happy with them. Considering the bad shape of the original draft, this is quite the turn around. And there's still lots of time in the cookie jar yet.
So, the next time I'm told to "write every day" and never take breaks, I'm going to remember this. I need breaks between projects. They don't have to be long, but I need them. Otherwise, my creative reserves don't recharge.