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When the Muse Is on Vacation

3/21/2024

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No matter how disciplined you push yourself to be as a writer, there are days when your level of inspiration is absolutely nil. These are the days in which you either can't force yourself to the keyboard at all or in which you delete everything you write the instant you pause long enough to reread it. So, what do you do when you can scrape up neither inspiration nor any desire to write?

If you've been plugging away for days on end, you may need to just give yourself a break. Whether you are religious or not, there is great wisdom in the biblical injunction to rest one day in seven. We are human beings, not human doings, and we need time to just be---to worship, to spend time with loved ones, to take a walk, to feel the wind in our hair, to stop and smell the flowers. It's wiser to take time to come apart into a space outside your work than to push yourself to the point that you just plain come apart.

Let's say, though, that you have built some sensible space into your schedule, you're giving yourself a reasonable amount of R&R, and the Muse still refuses to come back to work with you. What then?

Only you know yourself, and for some folks, pushing through to write even though you don't feel particularly inspired may be best. Otherwise, this may be a good day to take care of other writing-related tasks so that you still feel as though you've made some progress in your writing life if not on your manuscript. That may mean sending or answering emails related to your writing work, doing some research on your topic, or taking some time to review materials or media related to the craft of writing. It might even mean putting your current manuscript aside and writing down some ideas for future projects. Sometimes it helps to be able to swap back and forth between different manuscripts so that when you're stalled on one, you can work on the other for a bit; a strategy that isn't always the most efficient but does keep you in the habit of writing.

Don't overlook taking time to read, either. Most writers have at least at some point been voracious readers, but it's easy to put reading new things aside when you're up to your eyeballs with trying to get a piece of your own writing completed. Nonetheless, setting aside time---even a few minutes a day---to read something new exposes you to new ideas, writing styles, and ways of presenting material. And you never know when your reading may provide a spark that relights your own flame. If you've got someone in your life with whom you can discuss your writing freely, count yourself blessed and take time to be with that person or persons as well; you and your friends may not be the equivalent of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings, but you all may well be better for your times together nonetheless.

Sooner or later, if all else fails, you will simply have to sit down and write, however you may feel about it; when you're in danger of letting days away from writing slip into weeks and months, it's either sit down and work or risk losing any taste for writing at all. All disciplines have times when they just aren't fun, and the will to push ahead in the absence of immediate satisfaction is often the difference between mediocrity and the level of mastery that brings fresh joy to its craft. Nonetheless, knowing when and how to give yourself some space is also part of the art of writing.
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    I'm Avalyn Hunter, an author with a passion for Thoroughbreds and a passion for writing and storytelling.

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