We’ve spoken before about the modern nonsense of constant productivity, word sprints, weekend novels, and the like. Finish a manuscript on Saturday, publish on Monday. Ugh.
Of course, if you want to be a writer, you must write. And if you want to finish projects, you should write with some regularity. But you don’t have to claim to write 40,000 words a week every week or try to finish 5 or 6 “novels” in a year’s time. You’re not McDonald’s. You don’t need to serve billions.
In an essay on Lit Hub excerpted from his book, Sweat: A History of Exercise, Bill Hayes says that both the writer and the writing need an occasional break. As in physical fitness, the writer’s brain needs rest to realize the gains achieved by training and practice.
“Just as the body needs time to rest, so does an essay, story, chapter, poem, or especially, a book,” Hays writes. “In some cases, it’s not just the writing that needs a breather but the writer, too.” After completing his book, The Anatomist, Hays took almost three years off from writing. He didn’t make this choice deliberately, and didn’t feel blocked. His drive merely faded away. “I didn’t miss writing, yet I felt something missing—a phantom voice, one might say,” Hays says. “To have silence and neither deadlines nor expectations for the first time in years was sort of nice—and sort of troubling. Can one call oneself a writer when not-writing is what one actually does, day after day?”
Thinking about the principle of rest in physical fitness helped Hays get back to his craft. “Don’t work through the pain; it will only hurt,” he says. “Give yourself sufficient time to refresh.” The amount of time you need will vary, but generally will depend on the amount of effort you put in before the rest. You might need more time after finishing a novel than after you complete a short story.
Eventually, Hays became interested in writing again, and found his perspective had shifted. “Writing is not measured in page counts, any more than a writer is defined by publication credits,” Hays writes. “To succeed at any endeavor, whatever it may be, is to make a commitment to the long haul, as one does to keeping fit and healthy for as long as possible. For me, this meant staying active both physically and creatively, switching it up, remaining curious and interested in learning new skills—I took up photography—and of course giving myself ample periods of rest. I knew that the writer in me, like the fitness devotee, would be better off.”
Hear, hear.
