The last few days, it's been hot. Like swampy and apocalyptically hot, but I woke to some rain today and it seems to be breaking. If I am stuck at home on those hot days, I usually give myself permission to be unproductive--at least in terms of movement or going back and forth. Yesterday, despite the heat, I did manage to clear out and sort August e-mails, which get unruly as we close out the submission period and with many things in progress as we come into fall. While it's merely a matter of typing, it still, with heat brain, left me exhausted. I am hoping today I can do some writing things, which also do not involve much movement until it cools down more---plotting out some submissions of newer work, making another short video for dark country, and creating content for the blog.
Friday, I got a peek at the new season of AHS and its vampires & writers & writers-as-vampires vibe, and while I'll definitely write more about it as i watch more, it got me thinking about writer's blocks and writer's breaks and creative burnout, all of which I have been afflicted or blessed with the past year. Though writer's block may not be the correct phrasing, since sometimes the block is that there are too many things trying to get down the river rather than a lack of water at the source. There's always water, though sometimes it's just a little too much and leads to the same problems. Or there's water, but it isn't where it needs to be.
I have many ideas of what to start. Sometimes even where to start. Though sometimes, I get overwhelmed. Or I get distracted. Sometimes it feels like a lack of focus, especially when other non-writing things are chaotic and you feel like writing is where your focus should be. This happens with work sometimes, with the press, with other random things that are just part of daily life. I think,with my daily writing over the past three years, I've gotten over this a little, but it still hits me sometimes. Seriously, you have so much that needs to get done and you are going to "waste" time drafting a poem instead of fixing your shit. Sometimes, it helps to be more intentional during these time--to either keep writing because its never really a "waste" at all or to give yourself permission to set aside writing to focus on something else. I've been more intentional about my writing breaks and setting them unapologetically, which makes me feel less like I'm grasping for time and am better able to use that time when I get it back.
Maybe it's a matter of refilling the well after finishing a manuscript. Or figuring out if there are other roads--styles or subject matters or forms--that are worth persuing. Sometimes, it's a break mid-project--this happened with the last bit of my collapsologies mss.--the spell poems--recently.. I had an amazing start and wasn't entirely sure where I was going or if I'd be able to even get there. So I took a few weeks off, well into August, before going back. It helped quite a bit.
I've also felt the heat of burnout--and this applies to all things I do--work, writing, editing. Sometimes worse than others. Sometimes a thing I can fix by shifting priorities and sometimes something I just have to get to the other side of. I feel like this is more what writers mean when they talk about "writers block," since the mind is usually able to provide, but the world gets in the way. "Focus" may be a better term, Being "in the zone"--whatever that is is so important, and what we struggle--esp as people who make a living doing other things.
