Developing a Daily Writing Habit Recap: Taking a Break
Hey writers,
A shorter post today. I want to add to last week’s post—5 Tips for Developing a Daily Writing Habit—by saying that it’s okay to take a break from writing.
That’s right. It’s okay to take a break from writing.
“Why would I want to take a break?” you might ask. “I want to be a writer, so of course I have to write, and write every day.”
As much as we would like to wish otherwise, we don’t exist in a bubble where we can live just by reading or writing stories. You may have other obligations, responsibilities, interests, etc. that lie outside the realm of writing—family and friends, school, a job (or several), running a household. Maybe you just want to take a day off and let your brain rest by watching TV, knitting, baking, or doing some other kind of hobby or activity.
That desire is completely understandable, and nothing to beat yourself up over.
So let me go over those tips again, but this time, with the lens of someone who might want to take a break from writing.
1) Track writing days on a calendar.
In addition to marking the days you write, you can mark the days for scheduled breaks. For example, maybe you don’t want to write on the weekends. You can mark these days out (using a different colored marker, or mark, or sticker) beforehand and only count the weekdays as your writing days, with the goal of not breaking the string of marks on those days.
It’s not the end of the world if you miss a day of writing, and it wasn’t planned. Just do your best to start writing again the next intended writing day, to build your writing momentum back up. It’s much easier to stop writing and not pick it up again, than it is to start writing again and continue writing every day.
2) Find the time of day you write best.
Keep in mind that the time of day you write best may change. It can change overnight, or over the course of several weeks or months. For example, when I wrote the 5 Tips for Developing a Daily Writing Habit post, the best time for me to write was after dinner. A few days later, I managed to write a little over 5,000 words in a single day between noon and 9 PM.
So don’t feel like you have to commit to one period of time as your writing time. If it changes, go with the change and capitalize on it. The main point of this tip was to discourage the mindset that you should only write early in the morning (before your day starts), or late at night (just before bed). Whenever you feel the most productive or creative, or even just eager to write, is when you should try to just sit down and write.
Tips 3-5:
3) Read the scene you last wrote before you go to bed.
4) Think about what you’re writing. All the time.
5) Be open to inspiration.
I’m combining Tips 3-5 because they all fall under the umbrella of thinking about writing while you’re not actually writing. This goes back to the idea of letting your mind take a break. Sometimes you don’t want to think about your story—where you’re at, currently, or which direction you want to take it. Sometimes, you want to watch a movie or a TV show and not think about how this character or that scene or that narrative device could help you flesh out your own characters or scenes.
Turn off your writing brain and let it recharge. We writers, like other creators and artists, have a bad habit of beating ourselves up when we feel like we’ve failed to achieve certain goals: like failing to write every day, failing to finish writing a scene, or failing to write a certain number of words, to name a few. But you won’t get anywhere with your writing if you feel stressed and overwhelmed. If you’re feeling this way, it might be time to take a break.
So take a minute. Close your eyes. Breathe. And let your writing mind rest.
Besides, it’s summer. Go out enjoy the sun!
Until next time!
— Leah