At times, I get this nagging thought which puts a damper on me writing anything new. I find myself pondering the question: haven’t I written enough?  Whenever I find my creative process stalling, I find myself also asking, “Don’t I already have enough content that I could just reimagine, rehash, and regurgitate forever?”

Have you ever felt like this? Sometimes, you just don’t have the drive to write anything new. It’s especially true when you try posting on your website daily for years on end. But having these feelings aren’t a failing. We all have our limits. These times at which we feel that our creative well has run dry shouldn’t be treated as the end of anything. Rather, these times of approaching burnout should be instructive, not destructive.

At times like these, forcing yourself to write something is probably the worst thing to do. You have to take a step back and recognize you’re currently at a loss. Sometimes you just need a break. But, for many of us, having nothing new to give at a given time can prove a serious problem. As someone who has relied on my writing to pay my bills many times in the past, it becomes a trying and frightening dilemma.

When I get these thoughts of premature finality and feelings of burnout, though, I do have some things to fall back on. Instead of forcing out subpar work, I’ll take a day or two spending my time sharing the work of others and encouraging them. Meanwhile, in short bursts, I’ll revisit my archive of both existing posts and idea files to see if I have something to draw upon. Of course, sometimes just sitting myself down and tweaking and recycling an old essay is sometimes my best standby.

I tend to always feel there’s always something left to improve within my old posts. Sometimes, just rereading an old piece or some notes I took in my journal leads to me writing something almost immediately. But, oftentimes when I take this approach, I feel as if by rehashing a topic I’ve already covered that it will feel stale and redundant.

As writers, we sometimes get stuck in these cycles where we feel like we’re just living off of a tiny percentage of our actual production. Eventually, the love of writing wanes, sometimes to a point where we abandon the craft for weeks, months, or years at a time. I’ve seen many writers, especially full time bloggers take breaks, sometimes even for months or even years at a time. Some never find the creative energy to make a comeback. 

And, this is sad to me. I’ve taken months at a time before and each time it’s really hard. I almost gave up blogging completely in 2018, and that wasn’t the first time. But I keep going.

Why do I keep going? Because as much as I have written, there is always something else that needs to be said. For a time, I found that interviews and collaborations with other writers feel like they’re more worth my time. So, I began to focus on those. 

After all, lifting other writers up is what I set out to do in the first place. Shouldn’t I be focusing on presenting others more often? I did as many of those as I could handle. After a bit, I lost total focus and declined to blog any more for a while.

Yet, here I return. This is perhaps the third time I’ve reshared this essay in one form or another. Because as I write this, there will always be at least a dozen of my fellow scribblers feeling stuck just like I am, maybe worse. If you’re ever feeling stuck, just remember, there’s always something else to write. You just haven’t discovered it yet.

Keep faith in your abilities, hold fast to the belief that inspiration will find you when the time is right. As long as you don’t give up, it WILL come to you… just as this introspective essay did for me 🙂

With much love for my fellow scribblers,

~ Amelia Desertsong