Just a Week

I wrote something on Sunday night, at 10:13 pm, and it went a little something like this:

I’m taking break from the writing of my book. I know how it sounds, I’m scared to do it too. But I just needed a week to think about it, just a week of no pressure and no stipulation that I reach a word count, just a week with permission to sit and think about my story. Just a week away from staring at my computer screen and waiting for something that may or may never come. 

I was teary when I decided to give myself a break, gave myself permission to rest and think. Because the truth of the mater was that I had built in so many precautions and support systems to be able to rest. And I was doing myself a disservice by not taking advantage of the system I had built. I had written draft zero in such a way that I could leave it for weeks and come back and still know everything. There is no way I was going to forget anything because I had written it all down. But still I was scared to take a break. 

Needing the break, to think, somehow felt like a failure. Like I had failed in my task because I was not competing it in the time in which I had thought I would. But I needed the rest, because I was frustrated, incredibly frustrated. 

I had written 700 words in a first draft and hated all of them. Which isn’t really true, I didn’t hate them I liked them in fact, but they were not what I needed them to be. I had begun writing in 3rd person, which I don’t really know how to do when it comes to a story. I write most of this blog in 1st person, somethings 3rd and 2nd but mostly 1st, and so trying to write a story in 3rd person was like trying to learn how walk while falling down a hill. 

So I gave myself the week to paint. To paint and think and think and think. Because I was wrestling back and forth on how to move forward. Did I keep trying to learn to do something in a trial by fire or did I let it go and do the “easier” thing. I didn’t want to start over again, didn’t want yet another failed first draft. It wasn’t about the time it would take to rewrite 700 words into 1st person, it was that I would now have five failed first drafts. It put a bad taste in my mouth.

I didn’t even technically write this, I spoke it into my phone and it typed it for me. I put it in the Notes app on my phone, not my computer, because I didn’t even know if I would let these words see the light of day. I needed to vent and write out my frustration without having to actually write, because the truth was I was tired. Writing a story, telling a story on the level of grandeur and intensity in which I care about it, it requires me to give of myself. The writing take some thing from me, some thing I am happy to give, yet tired I still am. 

~ I finished venting this out close to 10:30 at night on Sunday. And I did take the week to think, but mostly about how my creative process was impacting the rest of my life. How self doubt and a feeling of lacking were fuelling my frustrations. How this time taking a break wasn’t hiding procrastination, I really did need to let my brain rest. Because I forget sometimes that creativity is an expression of effort given and it take energy, it doesn’t come from nowhere. 

I figured out that I need both painting and writing, that if I were to only focus on the one I would get bored and creatively frustrated. I need the double outlet to be sustainable. And I like the challenge, which I’ll be honest I’m loathe to admit that I need a challenge.

I’ve read two whole books this week and am onto a third, in this week of brain rest. I’m learning to balance the out flow of my creativity, something I didn’t ever expect to do, didn’t think I’d ever reach the bottom of the well. And I don’t think I’m really all that close to running out of creative power, but I’ve begun to feel the pull and strain, so I need balance. So I spent this week painting and thinking softly.