4 Effective Phases Of An Author’s Vacation

              I am back from taking a break from writing: in fact, I went on a vacation from creative writing. And am back to writing stronger than when I left. My writing quality started to decrease. I wasn’t producing writing at the level I started. I began focusing more on getting the writing done than actually telling a story, that’ll inspire others.

              I had the discipline, motivation, and projects to work on but not the quality and complete intention. That was mostly because I burnt myself out. I may have taken writing too seriously; I was working on multiple stories a day, I also was doing research for them in addition to developing them.

             Every day I was really working hard on my stories with no days off. If I wasn’t re-reading my stories,  working on my stories, or watching Ted Talks about storytelling, I was thinking about my stories and ways to make them better.

             Then slowly but surely I came to a point where it felt like I was trying to squeeze juice out of a dry lemon. My writing quality decreased and it felt like I was more interested in getting more words on the page than actually developing the story and producing high-quality writing that’ll inspire my readers. I may have even lost a little bit of contact with my purpose for writing.

              At first, I thought I might be struggling with writer’s block and so I tried and tried and tried and tried. But the more I tried, the more frustrated I got and the less interested I got in my stories.

               I soon realized that I was burnt out. So I took a vacation and it was the best thing I have done to further my writing so far.

So here is a really quick road map of how I planned and spent my vacation away from my stories.

Phase 1: Detox

• Stop developing my stories & try to forget that I am a writer
• Do anything but writing
• Stay away from everything literary
• Have some fun and go outdoors…get some sun
• Do nothing sometimes

Phase 2: Inspiration

• Watch inspirational movies
• Read a good book out of my comfort genre
• Don’t even look at my work
• Keep Doing Nothing

Phase 3: Recalibration

• Rediscover what it means to be a writer
• Analyze who I am as a writer
• Remember or adjust why I want to write 
• Rethink how I attack my writing projects and execute my writing ideas

Phase 4: Last Chance To Relax

• Try to do as much as nothing as I can  as my vacation is ending 
• Be patient with my motivation
• Write down any ideas related to my writing as possible
• Get back to writing when it feels right
• Begin to free-write randomly

              This whole process took about a month. And I actually loved it. It was initially painful to separate from my writing but after I settled down into relaxation it was hard to separate from that too.

              Coming back to writing this time around, I am more excited to write and have more of an idea of what I want to write. It is also easier for me to write and get my ideas down on paper. 

1. There may be such a thing as writing too much
2. Pace myself when writing
3. Reminding self why I write from time to time may help keep me on track
4. Try to focus on less writing pieces at a time 
5. I am not only a writer
6. Having writing discipline includes taking purposeful breaks
7. Writer vacations are awesome