Writing burnout is a gift. It’s not a gift anyone asks for. But it can permanently change your creative life for the better. As an author, I personally emerged from creative burnout with twice my original writing productivity. Let’s get practical.
(Note: If you’re dealing with burnout, I encourage you to seek out any and all support you can get. Burnout is real, critical, and often caused by structural forces; my writing and coaching toolkit won’t always apply. I’m not a therapist or a doctor, and you probably deserve more support than I can give you. But you’re here, so I’ll do my best. Please take what appeals to you and leave the rest behind. This is a living document and I update it every time I learn something new that helps.)
My take is that writing burnout teaches you what you really need to write. We’ll talk about that at the end. But I know you need practical help more than you need philosophy.
To help you end your burnout (and get some PREVENTION going so this doesn’t happen again), I offer you three phases of writing burnout recovery. 1) Sleep and Eat, 2) Begin to Prevent, and 3) Audit the Gift.
If you’re currently struggling in a writing burnout, the good news is that you’ve already started to recover simply by seeking out this article. If you’re burned out but you’ve found the energy to go looking for a resource like this, it’s because you know you deserve better… and you’re at least a little curious about how to escape the burnout cycle.
That willingness to learn something new, and possibly even make some changes, is a huge first step.
Here are the next ones.
Writing Burnout Recovery: Sleep and Eat
First, sleep. As much as you can for as long as you can. Your brain needs to rebuild on a cellular level during sleep. If you’re burned out, I’ll take the wild guess that you probably haven’t been getting enough rest of any kind. Especially because the brain’s neurotransmitters associated with anxiety (often part of burnout) can interrupt your ability to rest. So, you might have to make some extra space to get good sleep. Let the body do that.
Sleep is the most vital form of rest for your brain. I’m not going to be the 100th person who tells you not to look at your phone in bed, or to get on a regular sleep schedule. I am going to tell you to sleep however and whenever and wherever you can. Get a sleep mask, get the lights off, and cancel your morning appointments as often as possible.
How much sleep can you get? Can sleep become non-negotiable until your batteries are charged? At least more charged than they are right now?
When you wake up, eat. Go get some brain-supportive foods. My top three are walnuts, blueberries, and salmon. All three of them contain rich amounts of Omega-3s. Your brain needs Omega-3s right now because it’s a nutrient shown to reduce occupational burnout (science fact.) Eating all three can be like a gentle power-up for your mind.
Begin to Prevent Burnout
The time to prevent your next writing burnout is now. You probably feel like burnout is happening because you’re overstretched, overcommitted, and doing too much. You’re not wrong. But (for good reasons) I am going to tell you to do more, immediately. Do more of what you love.
Write a little bit of something that matters.
The cause of burnout isn’t just how much you do. It’s also what you do. Lack of reward is (arguably) the top cause of burnout. (I really do love a science perspective.) To survive writing burnout as an author, you need to embrace what burnout is telling you.
If you’re burned out… you’re not getting enough reward for your labor. Your creative work is not rewarding enough. Your writing needs to feel more rewarding.
To recover your power you might need to write less of what you write now, and more of what actually feels rewarding.
It’s time to get honest.
Where might the reward of writing live for you?
Is there any kind of writing (working on a novel even though you’re a historian, journaling, compiling science facts for the layperson, writing angsty song lyrics, making up bedtime stories for kids) that’s easy for you to enjoy doing? Whatever it is… do more of that. Even if it doesn’t feel productive.
Or maybe what’s rewarding to you is writing something really challenging; the hardest project you’ve ever attempted. The one that you feel like could actually get you seen. Or known. Or rich.
Whatever you might find rewarding… that’s your lifeboat out of burnout.
- If you’re a career-track author, it’s hard to make space and time for writing for “fun.” Or for experimentation. Or for anything that’s not on a deadline. “This won’t further my career.” Okay, boss, isn’t it time you shook off that rude, self-exploitive, extractive attitude and let yourself live? Because your mind isn’t meant solely to be pillaged for profit… it’s meant to be loved, protected, and enjoyed for the natural wonder that it is? Don’t treat your creativity like a bad dad treats his kids, where you only love them when they’re winning baseball games. Treat your creativity like a good dad treats his kids, where you love them no matter what they do.
- If you’re just staring out as a writer, it can be hard to make space and time for a really big project. “I can’t do that now.” If you’re already kind of exhausted, where will you find the energy to tackle that huge thing that you’re not sure you can do? Maybe it’s a lot easier to just keep journaling in private… even though you find meaning in making an impact on others. If you’re burned out on writing, could you have gotten disconnected from your biggest and wildest dreams? Is it time to break your stasis and try to write a bestseller? Like, really try?
Writing can CHARGE your battery… not just drain it. It all depends on what you’re writing. You need to write rewarding things. What rewards me (the bliss of writing song lyrics with super-clean scansion) might not reward you. But one thing is true of all writers….
You need freedom. You need open space. A blank page where you can experiment and fail, free from the constraints you’re holding your writing to right now. Consider it a form of maintenance. Like changing the oil in your car.
Writing what makes your eyes light up will help protect you from burnout. Now, later, and forever. Put down your judgment and pick up your pen and let yourself like it.
The sneaky thing is that what makes your eyes light up… is probably EXACTLY the work the world needs from you most. Burnout doesn’t lie. Your brain wants to do what matters and feels meaningful. Let it.
Writing even a few rewarding words can give you energy! Get on the blank page with one goal: find something that makes your pen come (even briefly) alive.
Once you get a little spark this way, you can use that power to fix some of the root causes that led to your burnout.
(Different brains work differently. There are no guarantees in life. But there’s a good chance that setting aside your regular writing expectations and seeking joyful creative novelty on the page will help prevent burnout for your own specific individual brain. I hope you’ll try it and see. If it doesn’t work for you, I’m sorry. It worked for me.)
Audit the Gift: Listening to Creative Burnout
I’m no Pollyanna and I see the dark sides of plenty of things. Burnout has a lot of dark sides. It has some bright sides too, and I invite you to see if you can consider it a kind of gift. Your burnout came here to help you. It’s not being especially polite about how it helps. In fact, it’s protesting very rudely and screwing up your life right now. It’s doing that to get your attention. This moment sucks. But if you can learn from this moment, it will ultimately help you succeed as a writer for the rest of your life.
Your writing burnout is forcing you to look at (and adjust!) the scope of your current expectations.
Fixing what’s not working here will help you for the rest of your life!!!!
So, listen to what your burnout is saying. It’s trying to give you a present… by waking you up to how much you’re really doing… and how little it’s serving you.
What are you even doing right now? What half-finished and half-started or ongoing things are you engaged in at this exact moment in your life? I bet you can’t even tell me in one breath.
Here’s a practical exercise to help you audit and reduce your commitments so you can fast-track your way out of burnout.
A) Take everything you’re in the middle of, and write it all down in a big list.
Yes, all of it! Write it down. Your different writing projects, other career and work tasks, domestic labor, emotional labor, social commitments, lifestyle stressors; all of it. You need to list it out and face it.
It’s okay if making your list takes a while. It’s okay if you cry when you see it all in black and white. It’s probably a lot.
In a perfect world, yes you could do everything on this list. But in this world with all its flaws and hitches, you can’t do everything. At least not well. And in time. And without burning out. That’s what your writing burnout is here to tell you. You’re a capable and clever person. But you’re a person, not a machine.
Burnout happen when people are doing a ton but pretending it’s a normal amount of work. Let go of that denial, admit the scope of this moment, and accept the gift it’s about to give you. Make your list for real and then come back. (Or read ahead now and make your list later… but I hope you eventually try this for real, hands-on, because I want you to succeed.)
B) Looking at your list of commitments, circle one thing on your list that you can simplify.
Something has to change. This is non-negotiable. But you do get the kind of freedom that matters: you get to decide what changes. What would be easiest to change?
Get honest, ruthless, and sneaky. There are lots of ways you might be able to tweak things. As you consider possible ways to reduce and simplify your commitments, here are some questions to inspire you:
* Where can you do a worse job at and have it be totally fine?
* Where can you do a worse job and have it result in a sucky (but survivable) outcome?
* Who can you get to do some of this stuff simply by asking them?
* Who can you get to do some of this stuff by paying them (either with money or by owing a favor later)?
* What tasks can you speed up to finish quickly, so that you don’t have to think about them ever again?
* What projects can you slow down to a snail’s pace, so that you don’t give up on the goal, but it does take up less of your daily energy and time?
* What can you simply quit?
Keep asking questions like these until you find one commitment on your list that you’re willing and able to change.
You don’t have to change your approach to every task and project on your list at once. You’re tired and that’s a lot of work! You don’t even have to figure out categories, priorities, or some big-picture plan. Just make whatever single change feels the easiest.
C) Make that tweak. Actually change that commitment.
You’re one step closer to writing burnout recovery.
You’ve opened up time, energy, and cognitive load.
D) Once you’ve changed a commitment that feels easy… go back to your list and do it again. Find one more commitment that you can simply or reduce. Change that one thing about your life, to free some space.
See how many tweaks you can sort out today. When you run out of juice… stop. Make sure you’ve slept and eaten, write a little something rewarding, then come back to the list.
Anything you can change a little will help a little. Every little change will add up. Simplify your commitments, then simplify more. Eventually, you’ll get at least SOME relief this way… and eventually, you’ll realize your burnout has ended.
It won’t end overnight. When it comes to burnout, there’s no legal pharmaceutical cure. There’s no magic wand. But every step you take to recover from writing burnout by making your life easier is an act of hope. It’s PROOF that you know you deserve better.
Writing burnout is not so different from any other kind of burnout. It’s holistic. It’s environmental. It’s not just about your writing project.
It’s about your life. You deserve a kinder, simpler, more winnable life. Your writing burnout is here to fight for it.
That’s why it’s a gift.
You can’t write well when you can’t think well. You can’t think well when your brain is squeezed out like a lemon wedge. Usually that happens when you’re expecting yourself to do the work of like seven or eight people in the body of one person… which is a kind of familiar story for a lot of folks who’ve ended up in burnout. Maybe someone else put all that pressure on you; it might not have been your choice to get into it, but it is your responsibility to get out of this situation. At some point, your body and brain will scream and go on strike, and you’ll experience writing burnout. In this way, creative burnout is like all other kinds of burnout. When your brain and body go on strike… listen… and give them better working conditions… so you can get your JOY IN LIFE back and write what you came here to write.
If you feel overwhelmed, just simplify or reduce one commitment at a time.
Burnout recovery can be kind of fun. The way that popping a pimple or getting a splinter out is fun. It’s a little gross and a huge relief.
4-Sentence Writing Burnout Recap
Sleep as long as you can, then eat salmon, blueberries, and/or walnuts to help your brain fire up.
Get some sparks of life into your brain by writing a bit of something that rewards you.
Make the easiest possible change to simplify any of your current commitments (it helps to actually list them.)
Repeat.
How I Learned about Writing Burnout
As well as having read approximately a truckload of studies and books about burnout, and having coached some real living people on surviving and ultimately preventing it, I’m speaking from personal experience. Burnout is what led me to rethink my writing practice and start writing a million words a year.
Yeah, that’s right; I emerged from burnout with twice my original writing productivity.
It got easier to write when I was more tuned in to what kinds of writing gave me energy and momentum. Writing MORE gave me the freedom to pursue writing what I “wanted” to write alongside what I thought I could sell or publish. That freedom to experiment more widely saved my strung-out, wrung-out, burned-out creative brain. The solution to not wanting to write at all was to double my output so I had plenty of open space to write without constraints or expectations.
By letting myself try new things in all that open space, I discovered that chasing curiosity is the primary source of my reward as a writer. Now that I know, I can choose and arrange my projects so I’m always working on at least one thing that stokes my curiosity. With that safety in place, I can do less energizing writing alongside it and not fry my brain to ash.
Curiosity might be a big motivator for you, too. Or you might get more reward from mastering a format, from pursuing a specific genre, or from making a pile of money. Whatever it is that you genuinely find rewarding as a writer, chase it with at least some of your heart most of the time!!! It doesn’t have to be your only goal, but it needs to be a consistent part of your writing life. Give yourself that freedom.
Burnout is a lack of joy, a lack of rest, and a lack of freedom.
You can’t always count on joy. Depending on your circumstances and your biology, maybe you can’t always guarantee rest. But you can always give yourself freedom.
As a writer, the blank page is a source of freedom.
Let yourself have it. Watch yourself heal. Embrace writing burnout as a gift.
If you listen to your burnout, it will teach you what you really need to be writing.
That work is your creative impact… and it’s waiting for you.
(Want more on how to heal from or prevent your UNIQUE writing burnout in your specific situation? Come see me for an hour of sliding-scale coaching online. Or email megan@howtowritesomething.com with any question this post didn’t answer… and maybe I’ll blog about it, which could help you for free.)
If you liked this, you might enjoy my post Flow State Writing (My Chill Million Words a Year)
xo, megan
Or just go home to the blog.
These (hopefully) really quite helpful creative writing tips offer what I’ve learned as an award-winning author who writes a million words a year, and what I’ve learned about supporting others as a private writing coach.
There’s no one way to write. There’s only your way. I hope some of my tactics and ideas can help you find it.
Yup, I’m a writing coach.
I work with folks at all levels of experience and all levels of income. My writers range from unhoused teens living on the streets to C-suite executives who want to up-level their communication. If you want a private coaching session but can’t afford it, email megan@howtowritesomething.com and ask for scholarship info.
curious/confused?: what does a writing coach do (and not do)
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