Recharge The Batteries
If you’re like me, you feel guilty when you don’t write every day — even if you didn’t write because you spent your time doing something writing-related, like research.
If you’re like me, you feel so guilty about not writing that you don’t take time off in order to recharge your batteries, not even when the writing is going badly.
By badly, I mean that you struggle with every word. You’re blocked and you can’t figure out what’s wrong with your plot. You can’t connect with your characters. You spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to fix your story…and you come up blank.
Challenges like NaNo and Sven, while wonderful for productivity, don’t always help with the guilt factor. No, I’m not knocking any kind of challenge that forces you to meet goals and write, but what I’m saying is that sometimes you have to step back and get some perspective.
That happened to me recently. I was doing well on the challenge, getting my 1,000 words/day. Then I hit a wall. I didn’t know where I was going with my plot, didn’t know what was going on with my conflict. But darn it, I had 1,000 words a day to write, and I was determined to do it, even if what I was writing was crap.
But…but…crap is good, because you can fix crap on a page, but you can’t fix an empty page, right? Right???
Er, not always.
Sometimes, forcing yourself to write will lead not to fixable crap, but to the wrong direction, which means you might have just wasted your time and will have to rewrite half the book because you didn’t step back and take the time to recharge your batteries, to get some perspective.
Last weekend, I was at that point. Writing just to get the words but not sure where I was going - and every word was torture…it could take all day to get my word count. So it killed me, but I took several days off. I watched movies, read novels I’d been putting off because I’m on a deadline, and I read craft books.
Once the “pressure to perform” was gone, suddenly, I was bombarded with ideas and directions to take my story. The craft books gave me ideas. The novels gave me inspiration. The movies…well, they gave me a fat butt because I just sat there like a mindless lump with popcorn.
Still…the batteries filled up, and when I got back to the challenge, I was pumping out over 2,000 words in a quarter of the time it was taking me to write 1,000 before the break. I made up my word count in no time.
So if you are like me, someone who experiences such massive guilt when not writing that you push through the word count NO MATTER WHAT, keep in mind that sometimes, NOT WRITING is more productive than writing crap that takes you in the wrong direction.
Recharge the batteries every once in a while. In the long run, your writing will benefit. 
November 10th, 2007 at 4:16 am
Great post, Larissa.
Yep, I have to do that to. My ability to write will completely dry up and I have to recharge. I’m a firm believer in the fact that my subconscious does most of my writing for me (I’m lazy
) and if it starts to run on empty I need to refill with fun stuff: books, films, tv, going to the park, rolling around on the floor with my 3 yo… *grin*
And with the tonne of writing I’ve done for Sven, I think the floor maybe beckoning sooner rather than later!
Kim
November 10th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Wise advice. I try not to full guilty when I don’t write as I’ve found that guilt is terribly non-productive. But that’s easier said than done, the not feeling guilty part.
I’m currently feeling a tinge of guilt right now as this last week has been a rough one in that I’ve had to adjust to a new temporary work assignment that involves a longer commute and which totally threw off the morning and evening writing schedules I had established.
A good lesson, at least for me, in learning to be a bit more flexible when it comes to scheduling my writing time.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:19 am
yeah i get that too. But i have bad new, i have to give up. I underestimated how much work and stress i’d be under in uni and in the last 26ish days of the challenge i’ve only written 517 words on my Ms. so i’ve used all 23 days off, and i’m still seriously behind for actual days too. I don’t see how i can get round it to write, i guess i’m just not cut out for it.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Thanks for the good post. I feel that I’ve taken the wrong path several times or worse yet, wrote myself in a corner. It’s not so much that I feel guilty (well, sometimes), but the writing is starting to become addictive and I feel unsettled or antsy if I don’t write. And extremely frustrated when it just doesn’t go the way I’d hoped.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Clearly you must be reading the crap I’ve been churning out every day.
I think I need a break. Heh.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Thanks ever so much for this post, Larissa! I’ve missed a few days this week, not so much due to the WIP itself, but to deal with some ’stuff’… and I was feeling very, very guilty about not moving forward. But I know it would have been rubbish if I’d tried to write, and I might have gone down a wrong path slightly, so maybe it’s better that I didn’t do anything.
November 10th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Oh I needed this right now. I was almost hitting the depressed level because I ‘m stumped. Currently I’m revising and it seems I’m rewriting more than anything because of this very thing. So when I began my second novel on Nov. 1, and I got to a point where I didn’t know where I wanted to take it, I started freaking out. Big Time!
Thanks for the encouragement, Larrisa.
November 10th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Good post, Larissa. I took last night off to do just that — recharge the batteries. Had a nice, leisurely dinner with my husband, then the two of us curled up on the couch and went through some of the stuff piled up on the DVR. This morning, I’ve already been back at the keyboard, feeling much better for the rest.
November 10th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
The guilt is the worst. Writing crap to get the words down, I’m used to. Not being about to even write crap is a sure sign I’m doing bad. This week I didn’t write for two straight days. Yesterday, the words flew from my brain to the keyboard to the computer screen.
So I completely agree. Sometimes you have to step away from the computer. Or even try writing from a notebook even if it’s just character notes and plot points.
November 10th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I so needed that, Larissa. I’ve been watching episodes of Heroes for the last week and not much else (besides proofing a ms. and keeping up with general business). And it’s got me thinking in entirely new directions and feeling energized about storytelling. I know the guilt is not productive, but man it’s hard to ditch.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
This is a great post Larissa and thanks for voicing what many of us feel at one time or another. I always feel guilty when I don’t write or I’m stuck or whatever. But sometimes we just NEED that time to recharge ourselves. I know I do.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
For me, I find that if I give myself a break, then it’s really, really hard to get back into the story. It takes longer to reconnect. But if I’m struggling, which happens plenty of times, I’ll slow down but I won’t stop. Even if I just write a paragraph or a page every day, I don’t stop completely. So it’s kind of a semi-break. 8^) If I walk away, it’ll be hell getting back. I know. It’s happened to me before.
Writing crap is okay, IMO. I don’t believe any words are ever wasted. But if you do write crap, you seriously need to recognize it for what it is and let it go. The problem comes when you let the crap ride and that’s how you end up getting misdirected. Write through the crap, then delete it and try again. Writing is rewriting. It just is.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
BTW, does anyone know how I can get on the list of challengers? I officially committed around the first week of October but was never added to the list.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Hi, everyone! So glad there are people in the same situation I’m in! *g* Well, it’s a bad thng, so I’m not REALLY glad, but it’s good to know I’m not alone.
AJ, I’m so sorry you had to quit the challenge, but girl, don’t give up! You have a LOT on your plate, so give yourself the freedom to write when you can. You have years and years to write once you’re out of college!
Karen, I agree with you, but I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing. I’m not talking about writing crap that can be revised — heck, everything I write is pretty much crap that will need to be revised. But I’m talking about feeling pressure to write even when you don’t know where the story is going, and forcing it somewhere bad. Like, you have to delete the entire last half of a 400 page novel, bad. I’ve done that, where not a SINGLE page was usable, so it was a colossal waste of time to write it. Had I sat back and let myself think it out, I’d have saved myself months of work. But I do try to write pretty much every day, simply because if I’m blocked on one project, I have others to work on. *g*
Oh, and to get your blog added to the sidebar, email sven@70daysofsweat.com
Good to have you!
November 10th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Sometimes, the balance is about knowing when you need to stop instead of shoving through. I feel so guilty sometimes and I push and push and push and then I get so bunched up, nothing postive comes from it. I like to think I’m getting better at it, LOL. But I’m probably just lying to myself.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
AJ - everyone has times in their lives when it seems like everything conspires to suck away all your time and energy. Sometimes, putting work aside to deal with real-life stuff is what you have to do. Just because you’re overwhelmed right now with school and other stuff doesn’t mean you’re not “cut out” for writing. It just means you’re too overwhelmed right now. It’s not going to disappear, come back to it in a few months when things ease for you.
November 10th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Thank you.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Great post! Exactly what I needed to hear. I took today off to do some recharging and thinking rather than just writing blindly. It really helped to think about where the story is going and how each character fits in. Tonight, I’m just going to relax and not worry about word count. The plugging away can wait for another day.
Thank you!
November 10th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Thank you for this post.
I’m at the “forcing myself” stage where I have an idea what’s wrong… but I feel guilty for not writing. Or (gasp!) writing on another story.
November 10th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Thank you for this post! I’ve had several days off as well to get my head around certain plot issues. And because it felt like I had hit a wall and couldn’t go on anymore. In the mean time, I’ve taken to working on other stories but I’m not counting those words towards my Sven goal, since my purpose in signing up for the challenge was to complete Novel #1.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:04 am
It is so nice to know that I am not the only one who suffers from extreme guilt when I don’t write. I never really thought about the idea that forcing myself to write could be a problem. As I just took an entire week off (not intentionally it just happened that way) I hope my batteries are recharged enough to whip my WIP to the finish line!
November 12th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Amen. I would rather not write for a few days and (normally hand write/relax) to get my story figured out than write and delete.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:53 am
[…] advice The other day on the Sweat website, Larissa Ione wrote a post about Recharging The Batteries. The whole idea is that some of us feel guilty when we don’t write [raises hand] and will […]
November 15th, 2007 at 3:06 am
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