Deadlines and Days Off. Sometimes after Off Days
Posted by trentjamieson on May 13, 2010
What do you do when you hit a slump?
Writing to deadlines is a wonderful and terrible thing at the same time. Wonderful in that it makes you finish things, and finishing things ™ is the hallmark of a writing career.
Terrible in that they can exhaust you and they tend to loom, like storms, and they have the word dead in them.
The late, and wonderful Douglas Adams once said: I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
I’m not Douglas Adams, that whooshing sound would be my editor’s deadline ninjas leaping about my study ready to pincushion me with throwing stars.
I’m a person that likes to deliver ahead of deadline, even if it’s only a few days. Though I’ve been training myself to get past that. Those few days can make all the difference between a rough draft and a much more polished manuscript. And, if you’ve read my blog entries you know how rough I can be.
But sometimes, like today, I just have to give myself a day off. Because if I don’t, I get what happened yesterday, me walking around stressing about what I have to write, and getting no writing done. It didn’t help that I have a cold, and that I’ve been working hard at the various other jobs I do, on and off, to help pay the bills. I thought despite all that I could just power through.
I couldn’t.
So today I’m going to find a place to have a coffee, read a book, and, maybe, watch a movie. And I’m not going to stress about it.
I’ve committed to produce three books to my publisher. Tomorrow I’ll get the page-proofs for book two, by the end of next week that will be done. I’m a third of the way through book three – that first draft will be done by August. But if I’m to get those things done I need to take the day off.
The secret to taking a day off is realising that you can’t work all the time, and then not feeling guilty about it. Sometimes when working from home, home becomes work and you can find yourself never switching off. Now, this can look productive, but generally, for me at any rate, it’s just me wearing myself down and managing my time poorly.
The not feeling guilty about it bit is important*. Sometimes I feel that if I’m not working nine-to-five every day then I’m not really working. Most of my adult life I have worked in bookstores, lugging boxes of returns to go back to the publisher, standing on my feet for eight hours a day then coming home and writing.
Writing nearly full-time is another kettle-of-fish entirely. Telling myself that I’ve earned it, and that I can take a day off, without feeling stressed or guilty about it is a learnt thing, and an important one for a writer’s sanity, I think. And, going by this post, maybe one I haven’t quite gotten to grips with yet.
Finally, in case it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. I’m loving my books and the characters within them but those characters know when I need a break, I swear. They start folding their arms and frowning at me, and they certainly don’t say the things that they should say, and the world starts to look like it’s been painted very thinly onto sheets of paper. Yesterday those sheets were slowly falling from the sky.
How do you deal with writing fatigue and taking days off?
*and it’s just as important, maybe even more so, not to feel guilty if you’re working full time and your writing slips a bit. Guilt is such a horrible thing to feel around something you love.
Rowena Cory Daniells said
I know just how you feel, Trent.
Juggling work, we both lecture with the accompanying marking, and writing and normal life can get a big much.
I sent the copy edit back to my publishers this morning and discovered the page proofs of book to have arrived. I’m really glad Solaris is releasing all three books a month apart. I know I hate waiting for books in a series. But the schedule to get the books ready has been gruelling.
So, today I’m cleaning the house, because I need a day off. LOL!
trentjamieson said
The schedule can get you down, but the proofs will be done soon (and then the glory!).
I’ve spent the day cleaning the house too, just the kitchen still feeling a bit sick so I decided I was better off staying at home.
Louise Curtis said
I force myself to take a day off from writing every week, based on the idea of the religious Sabbath that MUST be observed or there’ll be smiting. God was on to a good thing there, I think.
Louise
trentjamieson said
Hah! You have to watch out for that smiting! Funnily enough I work at a bookshop on Sundays, some Sunday afternoons I feel well and truly smote (or smitten, though smitten sounds to nice to use in this context).
Rowena Cory Daniells said
LOL, Louise!
I’ve definitely been smoted. I need time off to ‘nourish the inner writer’.
Alison Goodman said
Hi Trent,
Great post. I absolutely agree with both the need for a day off every now and again, and the difficulty of not feeling guilty about it. I also know it is “time for a break, Alison” when
everything comes to a screaming halt on the page or my heroine seriously considers killing everything around her just to get things moving…
Cheers,
Alison
Rowena Cory Daniells said
You’re absolutely right, Alison. When the ‘creative well’ runs dry you need time out.
trentjamieson said
Hi Alison,
as horrible as it sounds, it’s great to hear I’m not alone in this! Oddly enough, I felt less guilty about taking the day off because I’d written my post
Cheers,
Trent