Taking a Break from my Creative Writing
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- clint_csperry-org
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Taking a Break from my Creative Writing
Does this happen to you? Or do you find the drive to go through and finish every story every time?
- Nisha Ward
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- ElizaPeaks
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My biggest philosophy is to always finish the first draft regardless of whether you have the creative energy to or not. There have been so many times where I've gotten halfway through a project and lost that drive, so I ended up stepping away for some time. For the few times where I've been brave enough to push through, I always come out better for it. Sure, I might end up scrapping that last half of the project, but I never walk away from that first draft without new ideas for the plot of my story. You can't fix something that hasn't been written!
Consider this: when a stage actor loses focus in the middle of a performance - breaking character, getting distracted by that cougher in the front row, or realizing that their shirt is creeping up in the back - they can't walk away from that performance. We have to see it through until we've taken our bows and have hung our costumes back up. We end up hating those performances and beating ourselves up for "ruining it for the audience" (which is absolute garbage, mind you - I once heard professional respondents from the Kennedy Center praise our "worst" performance of the Spring season, and low and behold, there we went to nationals and came away with over ten awards), but we always learned something new.
- clint_csperry-org
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I've experienced this too, it's why I have about a dozen notebooks with printed story pieces sitting in them. Those could number a hundred or more. On days I am looking for a new project, i peruse them to see if anything is ready in my head to connect and go.eastandalchemy wrote: ↑12 Jul 2019, 05:04 I've learned to go along with the ebb and flow of my creative energy. When I'm working on a project and my energy wanes, I've learned to take a break and set it aside for a bit. I never throw away partially completed projects because at some point the initial energy will return. Returning to a project with a fresh set of eyes is one of my favorite aspects of the creative process