How Not to Get Burnt Out

Lately I’ve been on a poetry kick. I’d forgotten how much fun playing with words could be. The simply act of string words together and making magic out of nothing.

Sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect every time, we don’t stop to have fun with what we’re doing. No one likes grinding out piece after piece so you can make a living. But that doesn’t you have to hate the process.

When you free yourself to have fun playing around with words, it releases your creative juices. Stop trying to impress everyone and concentrate on yourself.

You can always go back to the piece later. The point is to write fast and have fun while doing it. One technique I’ve found that works is to use written kitten or some other program that rewards you for typing X amount of words.

Another technique is to let the characters decide what happens next. This can be scary at first because their decisions can radically the plot line you had in place.

This is a good because it means you’re tuned in with the world of your story and have freed yourself to play around. If something doesn’t work, don’t worry be happy. Keep going until you’ve reached the end then do the big edits.

The point is to find your passion and allow it to take you over so you can reach for something beyond the ordinary and transcend the mediocre things you’ve been producing.

When I write it’s first for myself. Then on the rewrite I keep the reader in mind and remember to kill my darlings so things don’t get bogged down by dead wood and fluff.

I also take time away from writing to work on other things and recharge those creative juices by watching movies or TV, or reading something.

The point is we need to strike a balance between producing the best product we can, while indulging the creative side of ourselves. Otherwise we run the risk of getting burnt out and no one likes when that happens.