Surviving Writing

Those of us who write regularly know that it takes a lot of work and can get tiring. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned from personal experience that might help you out.

1.      Exercise. Get out. Move. All that sitting is actually hard on your body. Between working in an office, and being a writer for fun, I don’t move a lot unless I make a point to exercise.

2.      Break up repetition. Give your eyes a break, don’t do repetitive motions with your hands if you can help it (i.e. using a mouse in the same pattern excessively…it has put some of the bones in my hand out of place. =/ Ouch.). Get up and walk around.

3.      Get outside. It’s amazing how much getting outside and going on a short walk will clear your brain, give you a break, wake you up, etc.

4.      Back up your work. I have friends who’ve lost all their writing when their computers crashed. I lost the entire first and second drafts of my first novel (but thankfully got them restored). Apparently once wasn’t enough for me to learn, and I lost all five chapters that I had written in the first draft of my second novel. Thanks to emails and an online platform, I retrieved four of the five chapters, but had to completely rewrite the fifth one from scratch. Painful. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but my current “back-up” system also isn’t the greatest. Do what I say, don’t do what I do.

5.      Learn to take a break. (This one’s for me). Don’t feel guilty for taking a needed break.

6.      Find joy in what you write. Don’t write something because you feel obligated (unless it’s a school requirement, haha). Write because what you’re about to put on paper will burn a hole in you unless you get it out. Have fun doing what you’re doing.

What are some of the ways you survive writing? Share it in the comments!

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“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.” – Russell Baker

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