Up until this year, I never really thought about the idea of taking a break or a vacation from your writing. I’d started a long-term project (what I like to call a novel before I actually start drafting) about a year ago, which had some slow beginnings, but gained incredible speed as 2015 drew to a close and 2016 began. But then after about six months of being completely obsessed with it, I started to slow down.
At first I panicked. Is this supposed to happen? I’d had a very bad streak of not finishing things the past few years due to the stress of college and academia, so I had thought, “oh god, this is the end isn’t it? I’ll never finish it.”
But then I found out that taking “vacations” from writing is a relatively normal practice – not just from writing blogs (of varying quality) scattered all over the Internet, but from my creative writing teachers. There were a lot of instances in which my creative writing professors would say, “Come back to it with a fresh eye in a few months.” I didn’t really think it would be helpful because, still transitioning out of my science major mindset, I had this strong desire to finish things as quickly as possible, and as consistently as possible, in case I ended up abandoning something and giving up.
But I guess that’s the great thing about the arts. You can (usually) leave it for a while and do something else. You can come back to it and it could be even better than you originally thought. And by stopping one project, it doesn’t mean that you’re just locked into limbo and can’t do something else. I’m still writing, but it’s not really anything serious. I just write a lot for fun because … I find it fun. Being able to turn your hobby into a job is both a blessing and a curse, because there are now limitations on what you can or should do. There are standards you have to eventually adhere to (unless you self-publish, in which case, you need tons of money) and you need to eventually just motivate yourself to do it. But the great thing is you can also find a way to take a break and not give up the skills you’re trying to perfect. In fact, it might help a lot. With my “break project,” I’ve been learning how to pace properly and set up conversations before putting actual word-for-word dialogue in — two of my weakest points.
Taking a break from something you like isn’t a bad thing — it helps you distance yourself, so that the something you like doesn’t end up becoming something you hate. One of the widely-practiced principles of art is, if you get sick of it, come back to it later. It’s not procrastination, but a way in which to counter it from happening later on. Very few people can mow through projects one after another without feeling any fatigue from any one idea, and it isn’t good to push yourself, even if you’re motivated by the fear that you’ll never finish. If you don’t, maybe it’s not meant to be. A lot of artists and authors leave their drafts for decades, or don’t publish for years, but to be sure that what they’re putting out is their best work, not something they do for a hobby that they know only one or a few people will enjoy. It’s true that you should write and create art mostly for yourself — but that becomes impossible if you just don’t have the right mindset to handle it and work to the best of your ability.
