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How to Avoid Burnout as a Writer
Pacing yourself, and being at peace with your journey
Burnout can happen in any area of our lives, but I don’t often see it discussed in the context of writing. Yet when it happens, it can be devastating and take a long time to recover from.
It’s important to distinguish burnout from writer’s block. Writer’s block is when you get to the page and can’t seem to to write anything. It can be transient, and you can usually work through it.
Burnout is when you want to get as far away from writing as possible, and never want to write again. It’s often caused by stress and overwork.
As a writer, you’re going to have good days and bad days. But you can take a few steps to keep the bad days from totally overwhelming you.
Don’t compare yourself to other writers
It’s easy to look at a writer who makes more money than you, or seems to be more talented or more prolific, and get discouraged.
In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott talks about the despair when her writing friends were doing really well, and she was living in poverty and struggling to get a book published.
But what you don’t see when you see other writers beam about their accomplishments are the sleepless…
