Well, the writing project I was working on is now live. Once I finished the last rewrite and was in the formatting phase, I decided to give myself some time off of writing. It actually ended up being a lot longer than I wanted it to be, which we will go over below, but I thought I would talk about how it went.
Day One: Once I realized that I had finished the final rewrite and that it was time to start my break from writing, I actually started to cry a little bit. I was so relieved, and I could feel how badly I needed it.
Day Two and Three: Because I was taking time off from all writing (including the blog) which is not something I have done in a while, I started to really stress about how unproductive I was being. There were plenty of other things to do, but I wasted time stressing about not being productive enough.
Day Four: My stress finally started to slow down, and instead of stressing about not writing, I just kind of… missed writing.
Day Five: I really started to miss it. In fact, I started debating with myself about ending the week off early. The good thing was, I started getting ideas. Something I have been lacking lately.
Day Six: I started writing little blurbs, including pieces of this. I thought it was not enough that I wasn’t technically breaking my rules, but enough to keep myself from going crazy.
And Then
I Froze. I mean, really froze. I would just stare at open documents that were meant to be blog posts or a new creative piece and… nothing. I was worried about the blog because I had left it inactive much longer than I intended. As for my creative writing, well that was even more worrisome because I haven’t actually written creatively in a long time. I have been in the rewriting process for a long time now and did very little creative writing during that time.
I am worried. Desperately worried about my creative writing muscles being frozen up.
So Now
I just have to do it. I just have to get a rough draft going and remember that I have written some rough things that have great potential. You just have to start.