Healing Writer Burnout: Part 2
Last month, we looked at three tips to help you heal from writer burnout. In this blog post, we’ll look at what really causes writer burnout, and two more tips to help you recover.
In case you missed it, here’s Healing Writer Burnout: Part 1.
Writer burnout is the worst, but you can overcome it!
LOOK FOR THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE
If you’re an overthinker, it can be a contributing factor in developing writer burnout. This tendency to unnecessarily complicate things is something I struggle with personally, and it impacts all areas of my life. When I’m ordering at a restaurant, when I’m re-organizing my pantry, when I’m deciding what to wear, and especially when I’m writing—I dissect and deliberate to the point of exhaustion. I have never related to a fictional character more than Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place. He turns the simplest thing—like which flavor of muffin to order—into an existential crisis.
But sometimes I wonder: does it have to be as hard as I’m making it? I was talking to a friend about this recently—how my brain snarls everything into a tangled ball of yarn that I have to pick through before I can make any kind of decision or produce any kind of results. He said to me, “If you know this is a thing that happens, can’t you identify it when it’s happening to reel yourself back in?”
That was a lightbulb moment for me. True, I can never completely rewire the way my brain works. I’ll always be an overthinker to a certain degree. But if I can slow down enough to recognize that it’s happening—that I’m overthinking and overcomplicating again—I can step back, take a deep breath, and analyze the problem in front of me. Do I need to freak out when I realize that a detail I changed in chapter 15 impacts the story foundation I laid in the beginning? Do I need to drop everything and re-read those first fifteen chapters to check continuity? I may want to, and I’ve certainly done that in the past, but it’s not a good use of time. Here’s a better use of time: First, slow down. Breathe. Step away from the keyboard for a moment. Does changing that single detail really mean you have to overhaul swaths of text? Or can you rectify it with a few simple changes?
It reminds me of an episode of Changing Spaces—anyone else remember that show? Neighbors swapped houses and were tasked with redecorating a room in the other’s space. They’d always get a challenge to use some weird material in the final design. In this particular episode, they were tasked with using some hideous fabric—really garish and impossible to coordinate with any room decor. One team agonized over it—twisting it into a wreath, spray-painting it, pummeling it into submission. They stayed up until the wee hours of the morning overthinking the crap out of this challenge.
The other team? They simply rolled the fabric into a discreet tube, put it in a vase, and stuck a flower in the middle. They were done in minutes, and got a good night’s rest. And they won the challenge.
This scenario is so instructive to people struggling with writer burnout. Are you twisting and pummeling? Or are there simple solutions sitting right in front of you?
THE REAL CAUSE OF WRITER BURNOUT
But sometimes there aren’t simple solutions. I don’t want to diminish a fundamental truth about writing: writing well, making it look easy—it’s hard. It takes a ton of practice to develop the muscle that makes it look effortless. And like with any athletic pursuit, you have to endure a certain amount of discomfort to achieve excellence.
So how do you learn to tolerate or re-frame the uncomfortable feelings that come with doing something hard? After all, I think that’s what writer burnout amounts to: it’s the fatigue that’s naturally part of pursuing excellence. And what I keep coming back to is that a meditation or mindfulness practice might have a transformative effect when the burnout is strong.
PRACTICE MINDFULNESS TO AVOID WRITER BURNOUT
Ryan M. Niemiec of Psychology Today says, “Mindfulness is the self-regulation of attention with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance.” Great, that sounds awesome. But how do we put this definition into practice?
I’d recommend starting small. Try listening to a one or two minute generic meditation on YouTube before starting a writing session. Besides helping you to focus, it’ll also serve as a reminder not to overthink things as you’re writing. It’ll help you go into the day’s work with the mindset that you’re going to strive for simple writing and simple solutions. Paired with tips from last month’s post, like allowing your back brain the opportunity to work through problems, this approach should help to mitigate writer burnout.
If you’re interested in digging deeper into the intersection of mindfulness and writing, there’s a ton of content out there. Try keyword searching “mindfulness and writing” on Google, YouTube, and Amazon (or your library catalog) for a look at what’s out there. Here are a few selected resources you may want to check out.
YouTube video: How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write | Alexandria Peary | TEDxSalemStateUniversity
Blog post: Writing Tips: How To Use Writing As A Meditation Technique
Book: Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life
Writer burnout is the worst, but you can overcome it! Let us know in the comments if any of these tips work for you, or if you have tips of your own to share.