Creative Rest
Fifteen days ago (but who’s counting?) I turned in a pretty major and fairly difficult revision of my next book. When that’s all wrapped up, all of my outstanding contracts will be fulfilled. Normally, this would be the time for a working author to get another iron in the fire.
But…I don’t want to. Not yet. My brain and body are signaling that I’m not ready. How do I know? Because when I think about putting together another proposal, I feel my stress level rise. Because when I start jotting down ideas, my mind immediately jumps to thoughts like will it sell or is it strategic or do I even care about this? Because any time non-writing friends or family bring up books or publishing or ask me how it’s going, I kind of want to run screaming from the room and/or collapse into tears.
The financial pressure to get something else going is real and serious, and that is a perfectly acceptable and often necessary motive for artists to make career decisions.
But I know from experience that if I override those mental and physical signals and press on anyway, I’m on an express route to further burnout and most likely not making the best creative decisions. It’s sometimes necessary, but not sustainable.
Right now, I am really trying to lead myself toward rest, which always feels harder than it should. We need it, though.
In Courageous Creativity, I wrote about the difficulty some of us have actually resting:
There are all kinds of theories about why it’s so hard for us to really rest. There are neurological reasons (it’s hard for our brains to transition from one state to another, from rest to work or from work to rest) and socioeconomic reasons (we may truly have very little time to rest because of having to work or take care of others). Some reasons are based on ideas we get from our family and community and culture (we live in a culture in which measurable “productivity” is valued much more than rest). And technology has added another dimension to all of this—how do we turn ourselves off in an always-on world?
Good question, past Sara.
I’m one of the many people who have discovered that real rest is a lot about getting into my body and out of my head. That is, doing things that are physically engaging—cooking, walking, and being outdoors in general. It can also help to do artsy stuff that isn’t writing, like drawing, collage, playing an instrument, or any other kind of crafty thing.
I find this kind of active, creative rest easier to accomplish at this time of year when the “I want to be a nesting homebody who makes stews and walks in scarves” impulses kick in. (Others of you might struggle more at this time of year, because you thrive in warmth and light. What do you do to keep yourselves nurtured?)
I have a certain amount of faith in the resting process, that a point will come when I feel once again like I have something to give. But it gets a little harder each time, and if I still feel burned out when my period of rest is over but my financial need still exists (as it always does), I’ll have to decide about if I want to continue on this path or do something else for a while.
Next week, I’m going off on a little writing retreat at my friend Ally Condie’s new enterprise, Golden Grove Retreats. I’ll be partly there to lead some discussions, but will also get my own retreat time during which I hope to think through some of these “what next” questions.
Some of the answers will almost certainly be dictated by the many complicated and difficult things going on in the world, because creativity does not exist in a vacuum. We’re in a context, in a world, in our communities, on a planet. I don’t believe creative decisions or creative direction can be divorced from these realities.
Time and rest and context and reality all play a part.
The Pivots, Comebacks, and Reinventions series will continue! But there will probably be a little break for a bit, and one big reason is my downstairs neighbor is doing an entire renovation on his unit and let me tell you, it is noisy. Unpredictably so, which makes scheduling podcast recording sessions a challenge right now.
Is it too soon to talk about gift-giving season? Is there someone in your life who would like a copy of This Creative Life: A Handbook for Writers? If so, you know where to find it! All the places!
I’ve also written ten other books :)
This Creative Life is a book, a newsletter, and a podcast from me, Sara Zarr, about reading between the lines of a writing life. The newsletter and podcast are free; buying the book helps support them and me. Sharing the newsletter is a great help, too!
