Despite my steady ranting that one should write every single day if one wishes to be a professional writer, I have to admit there can be times to take a day off. Many writers won't admit this, but I will.
I generally allow myself one day a month off from writing (or editing and rewriting and everything else that goes along with being a writer). But there are a few days where I don't write much, maybe just a few hundred words, or I only edit a few pages.
The brain needs time to rebuild your mental energy sometimes, and there are days where you're just too exhausted from running around and doing other things. The real world intervenes. Sometimes, every once in a while, you need to let the real world win for a day or two. Otherwise, you'll wear yourself out physically and you'll freak yourself out mentally, and it will be so much harder to get back to writing.
So, my suggestion is to write every day, but allow yourself a day off every once in a while, and allow yourself a few days where you still work at your writing but maybe not as much as normal.
Keep yourself sane ... especially during the holidays.
Thanks, Ty. Good ideas. Doing 'em. And I can feel ideas percolating, steam's building, the teapot's about to whistle.
ReplyDeleteJust needed a few days to unwind . . . or rewind . . . wind up? wind down?
i find that i enjoy my two nights off from writing each week. i think i need at least one night, for now. i like to refuel by reading for research. like last night, i read about the land of women, where there are only females. so i wrote about it afterward. =)
ReplyDeleteCindy, would that have been "Mizora: A World of Women?" I read that a few months ago.
ReplyDeleteahhh, a world of women.
ReplyDeleteMy loins are dreaming of delights untold; my brain is screaming in a panic.
Good thing there's a heart betwixt the two!
ty, no, this is the thousand year myth from china of a land of women. they bathe in a yellow pond and become pregnant that way. if they have male children, they are left to die by age three. there is a counterpart land of men in the myths as well.
ReplyDeletehowie, haha! i would be sad in a land of women. boo.