Five Ways To End a Writing Hiatus by PJ Kaiser
When I first began writing three years ago I had ideas running through my mind constantly. I would mull over story ideas during many of my odd moments of silence during the day. When I actually sat down to write, the ideas just flowed. It was a steady spicket that I could turn on or off at will.
But then life intervened and other duties demanded my time and attention. Some of the other duties have served to advance my writing life - at least indirectly - but they still pulled me away from actually writing. So I find myself not exactly with writer's block, but certainly out of the writing habit.
I know that I need to simply get back into the writing routine and the ideas will come. But diving into my WIP - which needs to be rethought from the very beginning - or even new short stories, seems a bit beyond me at the moment.
So I'm easing myself back into the writing routine a bit at a time while trying to develop a daily habit. I've considered five different approaches recommended by the experts (ie, my wise and wonderful Twitter followers) and tested out at various times in my writing journey:
1. Own it. If you're embarrassed among your writing friends that you haven't been writing, then don't do a cover up; 'fess up. You don't need to spread it far and wide - just telling one person can be liberating. On the other hand, if you're having trouble coming to terms with being on a hiatus because you're not sure whether you qualify as being a "writer," then own it. If you write, you're a writer. I'm a writer who writes mostly short stories. I'm getting ready to launch into the second draft for my novel but I haven't written anything longer than a blog post in several months. See what I did there?
2. Spend time with art, music, poetry, literature or other creative endeavor. With two young children, my opportunities to slow down and enjoy art are few and far between. I recently had the opportunity to go to the annual Jersey City Artist's Studio Tour. I enjoyed it so much I not only went to opening night but I went back on the following day. I was reminded of Julia Cameron's advice that spending time on an "artist's date" will infuse you with creativity. I discovered yet again that she is absolutely right. On the second day, I ran into my friend Sean who is the executive director of the organization behind the studio tour. He was surprised to see me back again. I wasn't comfortable with owning it, so I told him I had come back for the kids activities. I clearly need to work more on #1 and #2.
3. Do "Morning Pages" per Julia Cameron's advice in "The Artist's Way." And speaking of Julia Cameron, that brings me right to my next point. If you're not familiar with morning pages, check out this excellent video from Julia Cameron herself. My favorite tool for doing morning pages is this little site: "750 Words." Venting about your little daily worries - or perhaps bigger life-and-death worries - will free up your mind, at least for awhile, to let the creativity out. You may find that you need to get into a good routine of doing morning pages for awhile before you're ready to write and that's okay. Go at your own pace.
4. Start small with poetry or short stories. If you write novels, then start with stories. Or if you write stories, start with haiku or poetry or microfiction and work your way up to stories again. I love this essay by Lou Freshwater: "The Art of Haiku" on Escape Into Life. If you choose to write haiku or poetry, don't feel that it has to be worthy of a poet laureate. Just the simple exercise of coming up with an idea, trolling for the right words to express the thought and getting them down on paper or on a computer screen is sufficient. If they are pleasing, or at least satisfactory, to you then it is enough. You don't need to share them with others, although if you have a supportive community to share them with, then you might draw encouragement and strength from sharing.
5. Use prompts if you're stuck. Sometimes prompts work for me and sometimes they don't. But if other methods aren't working for you, then try them out. I particularly enjoy visual prompts so i like to go through catalogues of images and there will always be something that catches my attention. I used to run a series on my blog of various websites and images that inspired me. You can view an archive of those posts here. Another great source of prompts is "Storystarters" by Clifford Fryman. The Twitter thread for #storystarters doesn't seem to be active at the moment, but the ebook is still available.
Whatever method you use, try to build a daily habit. Start small and build up at a pace that's comfortable for you. My current approach is to do as much of options 1 and 2 as possible, and do option 4 daily: jot down some lines of poetry or haiku. I'm hoping to re-establish my lapsed morning pages routine again very soon as well. And we'll all be writing again before you know it.
But what if you find it too difficult to overcome the inertia of the hiatus? Remember that you have a story to tell and that's why you're a writer. Consider this quote from Ang Lee, the filmmaker who brought the wonderful novel "Life of Pi" to the big screen:
"We need storytelling. Otherwise, life just goes on and on, like the number Pi." ~Ang Lee
Please share any other ideas you have for ending a hiatus or whether any of these ideas have worked for you in the past.
Photo credit
PJ Kaiser writes short fiction and novels when she is not on a hiatus. She is the editor at Metro Fiction, co-moderator at Tuesday Serial and she blogs at "Inspired by Real Life." For more information, click on her amwriting bio page.
