HOW TO RESET YOUR WRITING LIFE
What starting again looks like in my house
Who else has had a wild ride the past few months?
In my experience, January lasts about three months, February takes five minutes, and March and April blend together before we're suddenly in summer. If you're like me, there's been a mix of stretches where writing happens and periods where nothing seems to happen at all.
Our long-overdue trip to the east coast last month meant I did absolutely no writing for nearly a month, even though I'd thought this trip would be different. There have been countless trips where I lug the laptop and never touch it, yet each time the optimism returns and I dream of returning home with a huge amount of work accomplished.
In your world this might look like moving, or school holidays, or house guests, or suddenly having to find a new job after a layoff. The possibilities are endless, and they aren't necessarily negative things either.
The only guarantee we have is that interruptions will come.
We strive to create writing routines that withstand the craziness that is life, but I believe there is something far more essential to create: the "returning to writing" routine.
There are so many books out there that talk about creator's schedules and practices, as if they never changed and went on perfectly for years. I doubt this very much. Even the most protected creative gets sick once in a while.
When you get pulled away, the best tool to have is a reliable way to get back to your writing.
Step one is something to overcome the stress and anxiety about having taken a break, likely not deliberately. I tend to spend days, if not weeks fretting "How did I let myself get so behind?"
Spoiler alert: This is not useful. It's more productive to start with an acknowledgment.
Science shows self-flagellation is ineffective in creating change
A friend who is a neuroscientist told me about the method of therapy she's recently learned to deal with chronic insomnia. I've struggled for decades on and off, so I perked up right away.
Turns out, the crucial thing is not to stress about problems that occur when we don't get enough sleep. She told me the most helpful thing to say to yourself after a bad night:
"I haven't slept well, and I'll be ok."
None of the "Oh god, if I sleep less than five hours a night for several days, it's as if I'm going around drunk," and other catastrophizing. Better to acknowledge the situation, and also acknowledge that we will get through it. No one has ever gotten a better night’s sleep by beating themselves up for sleeping poorly the night before.
Our return to writing could feel like this instead: "I didn't mean to skip writing the last [x time], but it's happened and that's ok."
We can't change the past, so let's get on with next steps.
Having acknowledged the break and recommitted to writing, the next important step is to re-engage with the project. The thing that's most likely to cause issues when we don't write for a while is that we aren't as connected to the characters and story.
I find the best way back in is to review my notes in my process journal. I know, I know, I keep bringing that up, but hopefully you're seeing all the ways it's helpful so you are inspired to keep your own.
If you don't have a process journal, per se, reading through any notes you have about the story or any character information is a good start.
And then, I go to the tarot.
It's often not just my fiction writing I get disconnected from when traveling, or sick, or otherwise out of my usual routine. I also lose track of journaling and other practices. Once I get out a deck of tarot cards and start shuffling, I know I'm coming back to myself.
Here are the steps I take:
I pull cards for my main character, a simple three-card spread:
One card for what we were working on when the writing break occurred
A second card for what's most important to focus on now
A third for the next step I can take to reconnect
This is an intuitive process. I look at the image on the card and see how it makes me feel. Free-form associations come up and that's often enough to get the juices going again.
Is this the only way to dive back in? Definitely not. But it is the way that reliably works for me.
Next steps for you to try:
If you've been away from writing longer than you like, think back to times you've reconnected in the past. What did you try? What worked? See if you can revisit those practices again now. (These observations would be extremely useful to have in a process journal as well.)
Because if you have a solid "coming back to writing" routine, then these breaks are less scary when they happen.
A writing routine that only serves you when everything goes perfectly according to plan isn't very helpful in the long run.
Better to plan for life to be the wild ride we keep having, and to know how we can come back when things settle down.
What's your favorite way to reconnect with writing after a break? Share in the comments.
