Back in the days before chronic illness, I found myself indulging in binge writing sessions. Much like a bad habit of bingeing on ice cream while watching the LOTR extended trilogy (because comfort movies need a partner), they’d leave me with a sense of having done something, even if comfort was the only goal. Those long sessions of endless writing and creating were product of stress and release, of needing to feel I could control something and in this I could control most of the process. What I can’t control is another post altogether.
But when I started to feel pain and fog and anger consistently, alongside crippling depression, I began to lose those long sessions. I lost a sense of creativity. Those sessions of 2 am in front of my laptop left, because I couldn’t function often for more than fifteen minutes.
I felt I had lost my creativity, as I thought those wild sessions I had were the symbol of that. The nightly writing down of all the imagination I had to give, the sharing with others in excitement, and the pure hedonistic yet masochistic joy of process; all of that became just something I gave up. And like many, I retreated into a shell.
But I had forgotten something very important.
A writer cannot write on fumes alone. What is produced is usually stressed and struggling, even within the fabric of the story. Forcing myself to write and fumble created an environment of anger and disappointment. I was already suffering mentally and physically, what was two more emotions? I was not well enough to write and forcing the process turned me against it.
Think of it as if you had sprained your ankle badly but you loved running in the mountains. You force yourself and with every trip and stumble, every painful stride, you grow to resent the thing you love. So you stop. Then when your ankle is healed, every time you go to pick up your shoes, you feel that deep gnawing resentment where joy should be.
Giving up on writing is not my recommendation for whenever creativity as a process begins to hurt you in some way. What I recommend is that you rest. Don’t think about deadlines and who is writing better than you. Don’t become consumed with sales numbers and fans clamouring for your next book or article. Choose to rest. Choose to simply let your brain and body both take a break. Whether from chronic illness, a bad month of anxiety, or pain that is your everyday existence, you can rest.
You do not need to ask permission to rest and you will not need to ask permission to return to writing. Listen to what your brain and body may be telling you when you find the process is soon becoming too much. Ignore the rest that pokes at you, it will wait. But what you should do is simply try to enjoy creativity in other ways. Read, paint, listen to music, watch movies, nap in the sunshine, and try a new hobby. Then, when it is time, come back to your writing and give yourself permission to create once more.
If you have a favourite rest mode option, can you let me know? I always am on the look out for resting between the bouts of writing I can get done.