To step back or not

As my critique partners and I adjust to life after summer, we struggle with adapting to the new rhythm of our day. We have to set our alarm clocks and wake before the sun rises. We have to remember to pack lunches the night before. We have to return to our day jobs, carpools, and emergency I-left-my-trombone-at-home calls from school. Through the new demands on our time, we have to learn to make space for our writing - mentally, physically and emotionally.

The other day I received a plea via email from one of my critique partners. She wrote that she hadn't been writing all week. She didn't know where her WIP was going. She felt burned out and discouraged, at an impasse. She felt she needed to step back and rest. She was looking for suggestions for getting her story and characters animated again.

Here is what I wrote to her:

Dear Friend,
This happens to all writers. I have certainly had many days like that during my current WIP. Different writers will give you different advice. The most common advice is to keep writing everyday no matter what. Even if it is only 5 minutes of writing.

The book I just finished reading Chapter after Chapter by Heather Sellers, talked about learning how to write badly. She called it writing good enough. It is advice I have heard in many different ways.

On the days that I don't feel like writing or the writing feels hard or flat or boring or going no where. Those are the days I have to write as if no one is looking. I have to write just to put words on the page. Make really bad sentences, run on paragraphs, grammatical errors, omnipotent POV, head hopping. Whatever it takes, but I just have to get words on the page. Eventually my characters will start talking to me again and tell me where the story should go or what they really want to say.

Writing is about getting through these hard days by still writing.

Okay, that's the advice that most writers will give you, and I follow it about 80% of the time. The other 20% is me doing what I have to do to take a break from writing. On Friday I sat on the couch and watched movies on TV for 5 hours. I didn't plan to take Friday off. But by Saturday, I was chomping at the bit to get back to my writing to finish this d*#% WIP. And I had a really productive day on Saturday. Now I am within 700 words of finishing.

But the fear for most writers is that if they take a day off, it will become 2 days off, which will become 3 days, etc. and they will find themselves 6 months to a year later with a partially completed manuscript. They will have lost their ties to their characters and no longer care about their story. They will have forgotten that they are a writer.

My suggestion would be to take 1/2 the time off you think you need, but don't forget you're a writer. And writers write! :D

I love you buckets!

Andrea