Writing Burnout

By Tsara Shelton

“I’m just not connecting to my writing in the same way,” I explained to my mom over the phone. Curled into an old rocking chair in my living room in Quebec, I was chatting with my mom – also a writer – who was likely feet up on the old couch in her small loft in California. “I’m not falling as deeply into it, I’m not as vulnerable. I like it, I just feel different lately,” I tried to clarify. I was picking at my toes and across the miles/kilometers I would bet mom was too. 

I’m in a burnout phase right now as a writer. Not only does my writing show signs of burnout on the surface, it also feels forced when I dive in. 

Unlike the first few times this happened to me, I don’t mind. I’m noticing and thinking about it, but I don’t mind.

During times of burnout I remind myself that all my inspiration, my deepest desires to write, happen to me when I am living life outside of my writing. Sometimes simply walking, driving, reading, or spending time in conversation will be enough to bring the invigorating writing back. 

But often a simple drive or long walk isn’t enough. Often, I need to live life outside of my writing longer. Much longer. Long enough to grow different myself. To evolve a little. To notice my environment evolving, too.

I’m old enough now to recognize that most things are sort of phase-y. The things that are necessary to my version of me – dancing, walking in nature, being with family, writing – will find their way back, so I try not to freak out when they are lacking. Sometimes I seamlessly find myself back in the delicious space of their embrace, and sometimes I push a little. Hence when my writing is feeling forced, I try to let it go. Be a version of me that is not writing.  

I am also old enough to know some things will have had their time and it is okay to let go. I don’t feel my writing is there yet, but I am comfortable reminding myself that I have written. That my stories, ideas, perspectives, and painfully crafted sentences meant to reveal a truth I myself was seeking to name, are already in the world. I wrote them and they will not be unwritten. This comforts me. This comforts me to a point of releasing some pressure on my writing and, funnily enough, creating a space where I can more easily write.

I confess, this allowing time is a luxury I have because I do not write for a living. My writing is purely for pleasure. And man! What pleasure!

However, another thing I have learned that might help during a phase of burnout for those who must keep writing: readers don’t recognize the difference as painfully as we do. 

As writers we feel passion in our work, we create with purpose and craft with intention. We disappear and discover ourselves, paradoxically. It can be intoxicating! When that is missing, when the writing just feels like writing, we are disappointed. But readers often aren’t. 

My mom (who is an accomplished writer) often can’t tell years later when her writing was inspired and when it was simply work. So, if she can’t tell, neither can we! 

Let’s note that we have a skill, and it is still there. Maybe less so during burnout, but still there.

I think, maybe, we writers can also see burnout as a good sign. 

If we are writing well, putting ourselves into our work with passion and purpose, we should need to take breaks. 

Why not also recognize burnout as a sign that you are awesome? That you open yourself up to being burnt out by offering so much of yourself to your chosen craft? I mean, that is kind of what’s happening, right?

I think so.

(Note that I have admitted to being in a burnout phase myself at the moment. Hence, clearly this last bit was meant to make me feel better about myself. You know what? I think I do!) 

Uncurling myself from the chair I reached to the coffee table for my nearly empty coffee mug, I listened and sipped as my mom thought out loud. “I think I write more when I’m trying to get a break from the world, or at least reach out and somehow fix it.”

“I write a lot when I want to be understood,” I interrupted. This is something I’d been thinking about. My writing used to be almost a desperate plea for someone to recognize my ideas as intriguing, as well as a way for me to get better at articulating them. At the moment I am not struggling to be understood so writing feels sort of redundant. 

“I get that,” mom responded. We stayed quiet for a moment, our minds wandering to the lives we had to step back into that were far from each other. I attempted to sip the last drops of coffee out of my empty mug; a mug I had brought with me to Quebec from mom’s California house before she sold it. I heard mom say something to my brother, a forty-something year old autistic man who is mom’s best friend. Though we are able to understand each other in many ways, we are also seeking different things from ourselves and our writing. 

Burnout can happen in any area of our lives. The reasons and what they mean will be unique to each of us but, also, echo familiarity in others. 

Sometimes we need to make big changes. 

Sometimes we just need to be refueled. 

Pardon me while I refill my coffee mug. 

—

Tsara Shelton is an avid sipper of coffee, a reluctant performer, a writer of musings, and a shopper of groceries. She is a mother, grandmother, sister, and daughter to people with a variety of disabilities who enjoys writing about the many ideas being surrounded by a diversity of cultures challenges her to consider. A fan of mixing insight and humor, Tsara loves sharing quirky and fun observations via her blog Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton, a selection of which can be found in her book Spinning in Circles and Learning from Myself: A Collection of Stories that Slowly Grow Up.

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