Waiting in Winter
I know you’re thinking, “Megan, it’s barely September,” but you’ve forgotten I’m a writer and therefore think in metaphors.
Last month I shared that I turned down a good offer from my publisher for a third book because I was feeling called to release myself from a deadline and expectations, to let my creativity flow on its own.
I was expecting the floodgates to open wide after that, to pull an Alexander Hamilton and write like I was running out of time. Instead, the exact opposite happened.
School started and I gave myself some necessary time and permission to plan and get refocused. I am always physically exhausted at the start of school, but then the first weekend came, and that’s usually when I get to write. It’s the thing I look forward to. This time, I simply didn’t want to. I wasn’t dreading it, but I had no desire. None.
So I gave myself permission again to consume media instead. Watch TV. Read other books on my list. Refill my creative well, as they say.
Now another weekend is here. A three-day weekend, even! The stuff of my dreams the past few years. Except, once again, the desire to write isn’t here.
And I’m not going to lie, it’s starting to freak me out a bit. Why don’t I want to write? Is it because I’m recovering from burn out? Am I really refilling the creative well? Or am I just being lazy? I don’t feel like I’m done writing forever, so how come I’m not able to write right now?
During the weeks, these questions are held at bay by the busyness of being a full-time classroom teacher and mother of three. But on the weekend, on the day I don’t touch school work, the day that has been reserved for writing the past eight years of my life, those whispers settle in and find a home.
It feels so foreign to not have a writing goal I’m working toward, to simply be.
I’ve talked to several other writers with more experience (and more experience with burn out), and they all agree: the rest is necessary. Creativity will come back, but it may take awhile.
One writer described it as a winter. The creativity is not dead; it’s dormant and temporary. Spring is still coming.
That image gave me hope. It’s hard to be in this period, to look around and not have a direction, so I’m sitting still. But I have to believe Spring will return, and thinking of this as a season is helping me to relax and enjoy the beauty of the snow.
