Hey, everyone!
Well, I won NaNoWriMo. (Like I told you all I would. 😀 )
And I’m still writing.
Currently, my word count is at 59,603 words, and I’m just about to finish Act II of my story, which is super exciting.
But I digress.
What I want to talk to you about today is creative burnout (as you can probably tell from the title of this post).
Why do you want to discuss creative burnout? I’m sure you’re asking. Well, dear reader, I want to talk to you about this because, up until a few days ago, that’s what I had been experiencing.
Basically, I wrote fifty thousand words in thirty days, and then my magical inner well of creativity was completely drained.
At first, I didn’t even realize what had happened. I just thought I had gotten bored of my story, because I didn’t want to work on it. But I forced myself to, because I was – and still am, for that matter – determined to finish it.
But, no matter how much I wrote, I still couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. I had to force myself to go sit at the keyboard every day, and every word I wrote was painful.
Eventually, I decided that this couldn’t just be boredom, and so I did what any sane person would do- I Googled it.
And then, after doing some research on the Interweb, I figured out that I was suffering from what is known as creative burnout.
Creative burnout is, essentially, when you’ve created a lot of stuff without stopping, and then it drains your creativity and leaves you exhausted. Like, in my case, I wrote a massive amount of words in thirty days, which thus gave me creative burnout.
And so, once I realized my problem, I did some more research, this time about how to refill your creative well, and I eventually decided to follow some of the advice I found, and take a break.
So I took a step back from my novel, and didn’t work on it for a while. I still wrote a bit – just a couple poems – but I didn’t stress about it.
And then, after a little while, I felt so much better.
In fact, just yesterday I easily made my daily word quota – 1,429 words – and I had fun doing it. I’m back to enjoying writing, and it feels amazing.
So, the moral of the story is, if you’re ever suffering from creative burnout, take a break from whatever it is that’s exhausting you. Do some other things – read, hang out with friends, watch TV, marathon all eight of the Harry Potter movies – and don’t stress about it.
After doing that, you’ll feel so much better. I promise.
Well, that’s all for today, folks! Talk to you all later!
-Alurea W. Over and Out 😛