{"id":24587,"date":"2014-02-24T06:30:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T17:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=24587"},"modified":"2014-06-08T16:54:09","modified_gmt":"2014-06-08T04:54:09","slug":"yet-another-terribly-unimportant-thought-on-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/02\/24\/yet-another-terribly-unimportant-thought-on-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Terribly (Un)Important Thought On Writing…"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 23 I began sharing what I like to call a few “Terribly (Un)Important Thoughts”<\/a> on writing. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Last week I followed up with another<\/strong><\/a>—all subject to the same codicil: ‘from my experience of the art’ (which may not reflect anyone else’s, at all, at all!)<\/p>\n

In last week’s post, I commenced by mentioning that “we hear\u00a0 a great deal about the importance of routine and writing every day.”<\/p>\n

I then went on to talk about what I see as the importance of not getting locked into an unvarying routine, but since then—in a flow-on effect way—I’ve been thinking about the maxim that if one is serious about being an author then must “write every day” (with or without a spirit of joyful exhilaration.*)<\/p>\n

But you know what? I think that’s complete and utter rubbish. Well (more moderately) it is for me anyway. My writing needs downtime—not just the occasional, change-of-scene downtime I talked about last week, but doing something completely other than writing every few days or so. I find that if I don’t do this I get jaded and the creative flow gradually dries up.<\/p>\n

In my case, manual work is best for taking a break and recharging the creative batteries, whether I get out and garden, or make food — working with the hands and reality possibly, rather than the head and imagination.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, it takes more than a couple of hours to ‘re-ground’ yourself and better still, get perspective on the work-in-progress, standing back so that you do see the whole of the forest instead of all the individual trees—sometimes even a\u00a0 couple of days<\/em> away from the writing desk.<\/p>\n

The trick—and it is<\/em> a good one, if you can pull it off consistently—is knowing when the right course is to step back, and when it is to stay focused and push on.<\/p>\n

Consistent writing and a regular schedule is important—but so, too, is consistent downtime and regularly scheduled breaks.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

* “train every day with a spirit of joyful exhilaration”<\/em> — exhortation attributed to O-Sensei, founder of the martial art, aikido.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 23 I began sharing what I like to call a few “Terribly (Un)Important Thoughts” on writing. \ud83d\ude09 Last week I followed up with another—all subject to the same codicil: ‘from my experience of the art’ (which may not reflect anyone else’s, at all, at all!) In last week’s post, I commenced by mentioning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24587"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25914,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24587\/revisions\/25914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}