Savannah Watson

Over the past few months, I have noticed a drop-off in my creative stamina. I want to write.… BADLY. I want to finish Salem Winters: Paranormal Problem Solver Volume Three – which has been in the works for easily over a year now. I have so much of it done, and yet it feels like so much still needs to be written. And then there is SW: PPS Volume Four, which I already have some plans for.

But recently, writing has felt like a struggle.

For the life of me, I haven’t been able to figure out why writing has been so difficult… why it feels like my brain is dragging its feet like a reluctant toddler every time I open my laptop or notebook with the goal of getting some words on paper.

It would be reasonable to call this “writer’s block”, something I wrote about (oddly enough) this time last year in a post called… wait for it… “Writer’s Block” (what can I say? Sometimes I like to get straight to the point with my titles). This recent bout of writer’s block has made me aware of something I have never seen in myself before: mental exhaustion can impact creativity.

This probably seems fairly obvious, huh? Like no sh*t, Sherlock. But this realization just dawned on me the other day at work.

I love my job; it’s very mentally engaging (which is exactly what I want in a job). But when I expend brain power eight hours a day, five days a week, it’s no surprise that my brain feels a little bit like mush once I get home.

And then, I started to notice that the time I could dedicate to writing after work is instead often being dedicated to activities that require little mental power. And while it is critical to a person’s well-being to do activities like this from time to time to give the brain a break, ultimately, they take away from the time that I would rather be using to do the things that really matter to me – i.e. writing.

Okay, great… I had this (granted, obvious) “a-ha” moment. The important question now is: what do I do about it? How do I work through the mental exhaustion so that I can do more of what I love?

My first thought, also an obvious one, is to get plenty of sleep. Now this one is pretty easy for me; this girl loves her sleep. I usually sleep like an old person: lots of sleep and early to bed/early to rise. And we all know why sleep is important to our health and well-being, so I probably don’t need to go into this one.

My second thought is to engage in various activities that are not necessarily writing-related. Hanging out with friends, reading a new book, crafting, baking, exercising – really anything that I enjoy doing or any skill I may want to learn. Using different parts of the brain may help take away some of the stress of trying to force creativity and instead, let the subconscious brain do the work.

My final thought is to just suck it up and work through the mental blockage. Sometimes, you just have to push through and get to the other side with brute force. While it can do more harm than good to try and force creativity, sometimes it’s necessary to just write even when you don’t feel like it, even when the words are few and bad. Just the process of writing may help spark the flames.

Above all else, I think the most important thing I need to remember is to be kind and patient with myself (I think we all need that reminder sometimes). There is no rush, no “time crunch”, and no pressure for writing, even when I put those kinds of constraints on myself. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to not be writing 24/7. The words will come, and the stories will get written 😊

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