How A “Controlled Pause” Can Help Your Writing (Copy)

So, you hate your manuscript right now, huh?

Listen. You and me both, pal. In fact, you and me and Stephen King.

What?

I’ll get back to him.

But for now, let’s focus on you. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume you’re not a happy writer. At least, not at this moment. Maybe you’ve got writer’s block. Maybe you’re in the murky middle of your novel and you just don’t know where to go next. Or maybe, like me, you’re nearing the end of your novel, but you’re depleted and burnt out and running on fumes.  Whatever the case, and I cannot stress this enough, you hate your writing.  

It is the worst feeling. You put everything into this: heart and soul, sweat and tears, time. So much time. Then one day you sit down at the keyboard or pick up that pen and it hits you like a bat to the knees: you hate this. The words, those traitors, they suck. They’re trash can lining.  Absolute excrement. It’s a betrayal, is what it is.

But don’t go breaking up with your novel just yet.

First of all, if you do currently hate your WIP, let me just say this: it’s probably not because the writing is actually bad.  More than likely there’s something else going on at the root of it all, but even if your writing is bad, quitting, my friend, won’t improve it any.  So let’s bunker down, commit to seeing this thing through to the end, and move on, shall we?

Back to Stephen King. Did you know that he actually abandoned his novel Carrie? He called it “clumsy” and “artless” and threw it away at one point. But his wife fished the remains out of the garbage and insisted he finish it.

Franz Kafka initially hated his most famous work, The Metamorphosis. 

Arthur Conan Doyle disliked Sherlock Holmes so much that he famously killed the character off (only to bring him back after public outcry.)

And A.A. Milne, of all people, grew to resent his Winnie the Pooh books, feeling that they over- shadowed his other works.

My point here? You, dear writer, are in good company.  Every artist, at some point, hates their art. It’s part of the gig.  “Some chapters, sometimes whole novels, are easy. Others are murder.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald. If successful authors like these despise the process sometimes, then the rest of us should expect periodic challenges. 

Okay okay, so you’re not alone. Great. But what do you do about it? The hating? If quitting’s not an option, then what is the solution?

I’m going to suggest something here that may garner me some dirty looks. It’s going to sound counter-intuitive to every good piece of writing advice you’ve ever heard.  Are you ready? Brace yourself….

Walk away.

Not from this post, no. Please come back. But from your writing, yes, for the time being. What, you gasp, are you talking about? We’re writers; we’re supposed to write, like, incessantly. Our writing muscles will grow weak without constant exercise, blah blah blah.  I know. But hear me out.

I’m not advocating that you stop writing forever—I’m saying that you likely need what I like to call a “controlled pause.” What is that, Hillary, some made up jargon you slapped together in case of a bad writing day?

It’s precisely that, yes.

I have several friends who are teachers, and their jobs are emotionally and mentally grueling.  So much energy and time goes to investing in their students.  As such, they need breaks. Lots of them. Spring break, federal holidays, summer vacation.  Challenging work requires intentional rest. 

Writing is very similar to teaching in some ways. You pour into your characters. You stare at words until your eyes go blurry. You think, imagine, and invent endlessly. It’s exhausting.  It requires strength, and strength comes from taking care of yourself. Part of caring for yourself means pausing…but pausing in a smart way.  A controlled pause. 

As I said earlier, I’m nearing the end of my novel The Sky Itself, and I have hit a wall. I’m so tired. I’m empty of words. And the words I’ve already written? Yuck. I’m drained and disillusioned, and I know it’s time for a break. But I also know that if I walk away for too long, a year will blink by and I’ll have abandoned my work.  So I gave myself two weeks. Two weeks to rest, sleep, READ, read, and read some more. Restoration. It feels like taking an L in the moment, but my writing will profit from it in the long run. 

So cut yourself some slack. Take a few days, a week, a month, whatever you need, and give love for the craft a chance to bloom within you again. But set perimeters. Guidelines, and stick to them. If you say you’ll come back to writing in three weeks, then come back in three weeks on the nose. Don’t ghost your own work.    

And the writing? Don’t worry. You’ll get on good terms again.

Just ask Stephen King.