I write a lot. Not just because I am a first year graduate school student (which by the way has caused me to evaluate just how up to par my creative writing skills really are), but rather because I am asked to. I do not hold a regular 9-5 job like most people. I hold a job to make ends meet, taking on projects to get a paycheck in order to support myself. An assignment may last a week to three years. There is fear in that, but there is also flexibility. If you have not guessed it by now, I am a freelance writer. And not just one particular kind! I write simply as a content writer- blogs for businesses to e-mail responses. I write as a way to market a service or a product, trying to come up with catchy phrases to get peoples attention. And sometimes, once in a while, somebody contacts me for the mega job- ghostwriting. That is the one I am most proud of, but also the one that takes the most time, and the most out of me.
Robert Ford writes that writers need to take a break. Because after days or weeks of writing, we just get stuck and we start to stare at our computer screens. How many times must I reread the introduction I have written for a book in order to get something new in my head? And then there are the writers, the ones whose whole life is based upon the published written word who get worked up with so much anxiety that all they think about is writing, and because they are so busy thinking about how they are not writing, they cannot write at all!
This is when you need to put the pen to the pad, not in the pen point kind of way, but rather lay the pen down on the pen and say, "Enough!". This is the moment, perhaps in the middle of a huge project, when the writer needs an oasis, something as simple as a few days, or weeks of watching TV, baking, walking around the city, to catching up with old friends. It takes ones mind off the "not writing" dilemma and it puts the focus on something else.
And something amazing happens when one goes on their writing strike, their sabbatical to the slavery of the written word. They start to think of words, again, they sound articulate enough to put on paper. After this short break, the writer can now once again focus on the subject at hand, and suddenly their mind is open to all these new scenarios or facts to include in their beloved piece.
I couldn't agree more with Robert Ford's observation that, "If you're a writer, you can stop anywhere, any time, and no one will care or ever know. Plus, the results might be better if you do". I think breaks are crucial, as they should be for any 9-5 worker who needs the lunch break during the middle of their shift to be productive for the second half. It's not different for a writer, except for the fact that because it is a lonely job, no one may ever notice just how long your sabbatical turns out to be.
But needing a break, getting writer's block, and then freaking out over the fact that idea's are just not pouring out of the heavens should not dissuade someone from writing. Because writing has its great points, too. I think recognizing what makes writing so great, no matter what the subject, makes one realize that putting pen to paper is really there calling. Because once someone has had their break, once they are back at full force, writers can be unstoppable. It may not seem thrilling, but to those of us who love words and how they flow on the pages we write, there is a reward...and it doesn't come from any advance from a publisher. Knowing that you love writing, recognizing you're meant for it, is to know, "what seems hard about writing may not be what you think. For me what are testing are the requirements of writing that make a sustained and repeated acquaintance with the world an absolute necessity; that is, that I be convinced that nothing in the world outside the book is as interesting as what I'm doing inside the book that day".
Writers need breaks to recharge their creativity, and once they have that flowing through their fingers- there really is no force that can stop them.
