Recovering from burnout?

[Scribbler]

How do you recover from burnout?

 

[Moonpearl]

I take a day or two off and try not to think about my story at all. I'll deliberately do things that aren't related to reading or writing, like going for a walk, watching a film, putting a comedy act on...

If I seriously force myself to do nothing for maybe two to three days, I'll be just fine afterwards.

 

[Kotohood]

Take a breaaaaakkkkkkkk.

Play a game or something. Like completely forget about writing for a week or two.

 

[TLCsDestiny]

Maybe the question is...Why do you feel that way? I suggest you get to the root of the problem and be honest with yourself.
Just a suggestion...

 

[Moonpearl]

Maybe the question is...Why do you feel that way? I suggest you get to the root of the problem and be honest with yourself.
Just a suggestion...

...? Can't he just have written too much in one sitting? I burnout that way all the time.

 

[Scribbler]

Maybe the question is...Why do you feel that way? I suggest you get to the root of the problem and be honest with yourself.
Just a suggestion...

...? Can't he just have written too much in one sitting? I burnout that way all the time.

Usually I write a chapter in two days, one sitting each day, and then rest one day.

But this time I didn't give myself a day of rest. I just feel extremely tired.

 

[Moonpearl]

Usually I write a chapter in two days, one sitting each day, and then rest one day.

But this time I didn't give myself a day of rest. I just feel extremely tired.

Ouchie... Unfortunately, there's no way I know to cheat burnout. It's just mental strain, so you have to rest your mind like you'd rest a strained ankle. You'll probably bounce back in no time, though.

You can sometimes help ensure it doesn't last longer by taking extra good care of your mind, I think. So, sleeping at a good time, eating well, doing things to entertain your mind and not asking it to work too hard while it recovers, etc.

 

[Kotohood]

Usually I write a chapter in two days, one sitting each day, and then rest one day.

But this time I didn't give myself a day of rest. I just feel extremely tired.

Isn't that the problem?

You didn't rest, so take a break. The brain is a muscle. It needs time to recover.

 

[Scribbler]

Ouchie... Unfortunately, there's no way I know to cheat burnout. It's just mental strain, so you have to rest your mind like you'd rest a strained ankle. You'll probably bounce back in no time, though.

You can sometimes help ensure it doesn't last longer by taking extra good care of your mind, I think. So, sleeping at a good time, eating well, doing things to entertain your mind and not asking it to work too hard while it recovers, etc.

Isn't that the problem?

You didn't rest, so take a break. The brain is a muscle. It needs time to recover.

I used to be able to write twice as much as I do now. But I do think my earlier work was less detailed.

And I keep on hearing about and seeing people writing a bunch everyday. So I thought I could do. Guess I'm still an amateur.

 

[Moonpearl]

I used to be able to write twice as much as I do now. But I do think my earlier work was less detailed.

And I keep on hearing about and seeing people writing a bunch everyday. So I thought I could do. Guess I'm still an amateur.

Everybody has different stamina and ways of working. In general, though, you have to slowly build up to writing more words per day, especially if you start putting more thought into what you're writing.

Terry Pratchett aimed for a minimum of 400 words a day and wrote his first novel that way. Stephen King claims to write 2000 a day, although who knows how long it took him to build up that stamina.

I'm personally still aiming to consistently complete the 400 mark right now. I need to stop when I start getting tired no matter what, though, because I won't be able to write the next day if I keep forcing myself.

 

[Scribbler]

Everybody has different stamina and ways of working. In general, though, you have to slowly build up to writing more words per day, especially if you start putting more thought into what you're writing.

Terry Pratchett aimed for a minimum of 400 words a day and wrote his first novel that way. Stephen King claims to write 2000 a day, although who knows how long it took him to build up that stamina.

I'm personally still aiming to consistently complete the 400 mark right now. I need to stop when I start getting tired no matter what, though, because I won't be able to write the next day if I keep forcing myself.

Yes, I stopped when I would feel mentally exhausted because I wouldn't be able to write more without greatly degrading the quality. But then I started writing with coffee. And boy oh boy did it boost me. I could write up to 750 words in a sitting and still not feel tired. Though I still stopped at 750 because I thought it was enough.

I think I went too far. I should've been satisfied with my increased speed, but I chanced for more and burned out. It's like that Icarus thing.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I play COD till my battery runs out, go out for a jog and come back in with the ideas fresh from the jog. Or I jerk off.

 

[gaylolis]

I kind of write to relax and vent, so I used it to recover from my burnout in life, I guess.

 

[Llamadragon]

Yes, I stopped when I would feel mentally exhausted because I wouldn't be able to write more without greatly degrading the quality. But then I started writing with coffee. And boy oh boy did it boost me. I could write up to 750 words in a sitting and still not feel tired. Though I still stopped at 750 because I thought it was enough.

I think I went too far. I should've been satisfied with my increased speed, but I chanced for more and burned out. It's like that Icarus thing.

Have you tried something like Pomodoro? It's an alarm clock set to give you two five-minute breaks every hour, and every four/five breaks is half an hour long. During which you just shut off your brain and rest without really doing anything.

I find that helps increase the word count I can do by a LOT. It might seem excessive to take a break every 25 minutes but it's helpful to stop and rest BEFORE you're tired.

 

[yansusustories]

And I keep on hearing about and seeing people writing a bunch everyday. So I thought I could do. Guess I'm still an amateur.

I know it's very tempting to compare what you do with others but I think this might be the root of the problem: There are a lot of factors going into somebody's output and you hardly know about those when somebody mentions how often they update/how much they write so comparing your output to theirs will lead to unsatisfying results in many cases.
Like, maybe these people have more time on their hands than you? Maybe they don't need to research as much for their current story? Maybe they are writing less detailed? Maybe they can handle more wpm because they're naturally faster or have trained themselves? Maybe the many chapters they post are just shorter than yours?

There are many more possible reasons why somebody might be faster than you and this doesn't (necessarily) have anything to do with them being more professional. So don't use them as your measure for how much you should write, just use what you're comfortable with as a measure. If you want to write more, then maybe try to identify what could be holding you back and find ways to change that. Like ...
Could it be that you procrastinate too much? Then maybe set a dedicated time just for writing and put away your phone or cut off your internet connection for that time.
Could it be that you're writing at the wrong time (since different people will be more productive at different times)? Then maybe try writing at a different time.
Could it be that your hand speed is too slow? There are exercises you can do to train that so maybe try a few. Or if you're unsure about this, try to do a test to measure your possible wpm first.
Could it be that it's not the actual writing but the preparation? Like, maybe it could help you to plan the scene/chapter you want to write that day out first. I've heard from quite a few people who will be faster in the actual writing stage when they do that.

Anyway, as others have pointed out already: Consistently writing more is something that needs you to spend a lot of time and effort. It's something that is hard to do from one day to the other so just take your time with it. Maybe raising your writing goals by a little each week or month might be better than raising it by a lot at once. Of course, this also depends a bit on the person. Just try out different things and see how it works for you.

 

[Sinpathy]

Write while suffering from writer's block constantly. That's the trick.

 

[clover2218]

I once spent two whole months constantly thinking about and writing two stories simultaneously. As someone who just started writing, I was on a creative streak, you could say. Even though I was juggling two stories, they were both coming along nicely. I was sleeping no more than 4 to 5 hours a day as I couldn't wait to get back to my pc and write down the chapters and even sleeping felt like a waste of time(My typing was pretty slow). I couldn't even feel any tiredness, though my parents would often complain about how terrible I looked...

Suddenly one day I just stopped. The stop was abrupt, like a sports car running full-speed coming to a sudden screeching halt. I can't tell you the exact reason as I am still pretty inexperienced in the field of writing, but all I can say is my brain felt kind of clogged up. Even though I knew where the stories were going, I couldn't form a single satisfactory word for the life of me. Anything I was writing would feel weak and lacking any sort of impact, even though I couldn't spot what was wrong with them. It was a pretty depressing time of my life...

Would you describe that as a burnout???

(Please don't mind the triple punctuation, they are kinda my habit in chats and posts. Not in stories though)...

 

[Rellawing]

Isolate what went wrong. Figure out if it was your feelings or insecurity or if it was just a lack of creativity. Once you know, you can work to improve your situation, and put yourself into a situation where you aren't stressed to write. With my current novel I wrote the whole thing before I even thought to release it because I didn't need the stress either. That helped me to avoid any feelings of burning out. <3 Take your time, be patient, and do the thing. Getting editors and beta readers helps too.