by Kris Maze

There are several possible causes of Burnout and some are listed below.  This list is only a sample of what could trigger Writer Burnout.

Whatever you think your cause may be, know that each of us is unique. You have circumstances that are different from any other writer. Be sure to get to the root of your Burnout and check with your health professionals to be sure.

• Working too much. 
• Holding multiple jobs
• Care-givers – having many people rely on you (Kids? Aging parents?)
• Perfectionism
• Various fears (failure, rejection – you know, the basic writing experience we all go through, but to an extreme)
• Feeling overworked or not having the tools to complete the job well
• Not getting recognition for one’s work
• Not getting enough sleep
• Type A personality

Are you Stressed or Burned Out?

A top-rated blog focused on mental health offers insights on the effect of stress and it’s connection to  Burnout here.

If you are not sure whether you are going through a stressful time, or heading towards a writing shut-down, look at these two lists. Which do you most relate to?  One leads to the next and becomes progressively worse. 

Characteristics of Stress

• Characterized by over-engagement.       
• Emotions are over-reactive.        
• Produces urgency and hyperactivity.      
• Loss of energy. 
• Leads to anxiety disorders.         
• Primary damage is physical.       

Characteristics of Burnout

• Characterized by disengagement.           
• Emotions are blunted.
• Produces helplessness and hopelessness.
• Loss of motivation, ideals, and hope.
• Leads to detachment and depression.
• Primary damage is emotional.

The more you relate to either of these lists, makes you more susceptible Writing Burnout. Being aware of pitfalls and bolstering your creativity can get your writing moving forward again.

Help Guides 3 R’s to Recover from Burnout

 If you find yourself in the Burnout danger zone. There are ways to get out of it.  Check out the Help Guides 3 R’s to Recovery here. It can be a starting point to turn around what is ailing you and rekindle your writing life.

• Recognize – Watch for signs of Burnout
• Reverse – Find support and ways to manage your stress
• Resilience – take care of your emotional and physical health

Writerly Reference for dealing with Burnout

If your writing life is going well, you may still want to prevent yourself from sliding into a Writing Burnout. It doesn’t happen over night. Set up positive patterns for your writing and enjoy your author life more. Protect your writing ability and preserve your joy of writing with these suggestions.

Broken into the 3 main categories where Burnout starts to show, consider these ways to keep the Dreaded Burnout from occurring in your writing life.

Work – Writing

Schedule

1. Create a schedule for your writing and stick to it.
2. Celebrate. Not only showing up and trying, but celebrating what ever words land on the page.
3. Clock out. Be sure to respect your muse and clock out when you say you would.
4. If you are energized and want to write more, let that feeling carry you.  Let it settle in and rekindle.  It will be there when you start your next scheduled writing session.

Podcasts

Six-Figure Authors – an episode about Burnout with personal anecdotes.

Indie authors are their own CEO and although they enjoy the creative control, they are not immune to over-working. This episode was a hard look at what got them into and through Burnout and Writer’s Block.

From the podcast notes you can see the topics these three successful authors discuss.

Overview of the topics:

• Definitions of writer’s block and burnout.
• Whether they’ve experienced burnout and under what circumstances.
• How long their burnout lasted and if it effected book sales/royalties/fans.
• What they did to overcome it (if they’ve overcome it).
• Being stuck on the plot or something about a particular story.
• Tips for getting unstuck.
• How we know if we’re experiencing burnout or writer’s block.

Reading

1. Read for fun.  Rediscover what makes great writing sing and find books within your genre or explore others. Fill your writerly well with good words and they will seep through into your writing as well.
2. Take note of the characterizations and world-building in a casual way. What is working for you as a reader? 
3. Join a book club and experience the joy of reading from other’s point of view. Reconnect in a personal way with readers. It can encourage your muse to come out to play and to seek to write again with purpose.

Education

Here at WITS we have many wonderful guest posts and resources to glean from. Take this time away from writing to refilling your knowledge tanks. You can read blog posts, peruse craft books, or catch up with how-to videos on YouTube. There are also many writing classes and workshops one could attend, especially since many live events are becoming the normal again. 

Working on craft is always a smart writing investment.

-Your Muse

I recently took an Immersion Class from Margie Lawson, and it has revitalized my writing. Her system embedded the editing process into my work, making second, third and fourth edits much easier. I have more ease and direction when working through a manuscript. My beta readers have noticed the change in my writing, saying it is smoother and more interesting.

Spending a few hours with Margie and Immersion Grad students helped me connect some of the writerly segments between a solid first draft and a polished manuscript.

Set aside time and resources to invest in yourself and your writing career. 

There are multiple benefits to taking a class or attending a workshop.

• learning with like-minded potential friends
• getting feedback and encouragement from other talented writers
• giving feedback can spark your confidence
• reconnect with your own writing chops

Lifestyle – Relationships

Body

1.Your relationship with writing, with friends, with family, with work all show up in your physical being. What are you like as a person? Does your persona change with how well your writing is going? If you can relate to this, you are not alone. Ask a housemate if you are not sure. I bet they have an answer they would love to share, if you have a household anything like mine.

Are you easy going because your writing journey is a smooth passage? It shows in your interactions. Stressed out and cynical? It can hurt those around you as they deal with your grumpiness.

2. Do you remember the Rule of 4 from my previous post here at WITS?  It states that we have 3-4 hours tops of our best concentration.  Make them count. If I work for an hour, I have 45 minutes of solid productive writing. Take a little less time, if your burnout demands it. See a typical writing session where I build in break time.

Then, I allow myself 5 to 10 minutes to ease into my project. After a 30 - 45 minute session I give myself 10 minutes to walk around, do a small cleaning project, or go to the mailbox. It gives my body a break, but also resets the mind to tackle the next scene or tricky section of dialogue. Win-Win!

3. My go-to exercises are walking and yoga because they are low-impact and low-stress, but my exercise app also accepts house cleaning.

True. I feel better when I’ve added more movement to my daily routine. Trying to move a little each hour helps me from getting body aches and grouchy moods, which is a good reason to exercise. It can also keep your mind off obsessing about why you are not writing. Also, true.

Endurance

Miffie Siedeman knows a lot about endurance. As a multi triathlete and writer, she has tips for writers who need help getting through the tough parts. Check out her recent post at WITS for more practical ways to make your writer day smoother and cross that writing finish line.

Sleep

• Be sure to get enough sleep to feel rested. 
• Set an alarm to go to bed instead of only for waking up.
• Avoid screen time before you go to sleep to enhance your sleep mindset.
• Seek professional help if sleep is an issue. Some underlying causes like sleep apnea can rob a person of a healthy night’s sleep.

Food

• Be certain to eat plenty of healthy energy providing foods.
• Drink plenty of water.
• Avoid foods and drinks that could be a crutch for the over-worked lifestyle. Too much caffeine? A little alcohol to relax?  Theses can have adverse effects when not consumed in moderation.

Personality - Self

Impose Limits

• Limit the times you write and stick to them. 
• Stick to your social obligations. Allow others to refuel your creativity. Enjoy spending time with others (even you introverts need human interaction!).
• Fill your writer well with writer greatness and find great stories to consume. Here is permission to dip into the limited series you wanted to watch on TV. Or better yet, read the book it came from!

Restore Before More

This simple mantra has been very useful to me. When my schedule opens up, I don’t simply do more work like I want to, I reflect on whether I am ready for it. I am balancing my input activities to keep my writing output fresh and the writing well flowing.  After I hit my word count and writing task goals for the day, it is time to honor the hard work with something fun and/or relaxing.  I suggest you do the same to avoid Burnout.

Grace and Kindness

Take care of you. Give yourself space to rebuild your energy. Reflect on how to avoid this type of burnout in the future, by using the 3 R’s. And relearn how to love your writing life.

How have you taken a fun break from writing recently? What suggestions do you have to keep your writing life fresh and engaging?

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her YA sci-fi and horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website which is currently getting some new fun features!

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors with her family.

by Kris Maze

Do you have the same energy and enthusiasm you had when your idea was just a kernel? Are you in a creative slump?  What you could be experiencing is either Writing Block or Burnout.  Both are difficult when you work in a creative field, but when considering the impact each has on your ability to write, one is much harder to overcome.

Today, let’s check in with our writerly selves.  Are you in that honeymoon period of starting a project you just love to pieces?  Are you on the top of your audience engagement game with fans galore? Are you racking up writer accolades or mastering the algorithms to market your best-seller?

Maybe not.

Maybe you relate more to grinding out each page or tiptoeing through the edits on your first draft. Painful paragraph by paragraph. Being aware of how you feel at each stage of your writing journey can help writers avoid creative lulls or worse, a dreaded burnout.

So, how are you doing with your WIP? 

Writer’s Block Versus Burnout

There is a difference between Writer’s Block and Burnout, and we are going to dig into each in this 3-part series.  Read on to identify key aspects of each, signs you may be experiencing one, and what to do to remedy each situation.

It has been said that knowledge is power, and this knowledge, dear writer, could keep you out of a difficult place where writing is not an option. We at WITS want you to keep your writing enthusiasm intact.

Read on to find out how you can avoid losing your writing mojo.

To keep the writing life healthy and balanced, we need to stay aware of how we feel about writing.  Taking time to check on their relationship with their creative work can save us long recover times associated with Writer Burnout and to getting back into the writing groove. 

Let’s begin with a few definitions of each term.  According to Mayo Clinic, Burnout isn’t a medical condition, but it affects our health.

Burnout:

Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.

And according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary writer’s block is a psychological condition.

Writer’s Block:

 a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece.

Writer’s Block is more associated with temporary inability to write on a specific piece.  We have all gotten ‘stuck’ on a project. And we can usually work our way around this difficulty.  Writers are great analysts and can diagnosis the issues that hold us back on a project.

One reason for Writer’s Block

Often our Writer’s Block stems from a flaw in the story.  We look into the characterizations or world building.  We drive the stakes higher and add compelling details to build our interest in the story. We will delineate more ideas to work through a writer’s block in a later post.

Another more challenging issue facing writers is Burnout. 

This serious condition goes far deeper than not writing the ending to a complex chapter. Burnout derails your writing ability all together.  The desire, the energy, the whole lifestyle is challenging and affects your work, relationships, and even personality. This is exceptionally stressful if your income is dependent on writing, but all aspects of the writer’s life can be miserable due to Burnout. 

The good news is that Burnout can be avoided.  It can be monitored and reversed. If you are on a trajectory towards burning yourself out, take steps to avoid this debilitating condition. Burnout takes much longer to return to writing than simple Writer’s Block. See the following list of behaviors and feelings associated with Burnout.

How to Know If You’re Heading Towards Burnout?

Look at this list from the NY Book Editors Blog. If you can relate to several of these over a long period of time, you may be in a stage of Burnout.

1. You wake up exhausted
2. You don’t feel motivated to get out of bed
3. You snack more during your writing sessions
4. You think about your writing “to do” list while attempting to relax
5. You can't relax
6. You don’t sleep well
7. You don't enjoy writing anymore
8. Everything you write sounds the same
9. Everything (including writing) seems pointless
10. You procrastinate
11. You’re isolated and don’t socialize as much as you once did
12. Your work isn't as good as it once was
13. You have trouble locating your creative self
14. You fantasize about running away from it all
15. You're moody and negative
16. You're depressed
17. You're lethargic
18. You're forgetful
19. You're constantly fending off a cold (burnout stress often leads to physical stress)

Signs of Writer Burnout

Look for the signs!  One copywriter describes his experience in a blog post here.

As he took on writing as a full-time job, Jon Meitner found that his plan to ghostwrite a novel a month was not realistic for his life. He was confident he could accomplish this because the math worked and because his strength was to easily write 4 thousand words a day. But he quickly found that he didn’t plan for the toll that daily grind would take on his overall health. 

Here are takeaways from his article on how to handle writing burnout.

Don’t overestimate your abilities

You may be able to write thousands of words, but how long can you sustain that?  And at what cost?  Not all of us can produce like Stephen King, and we shouldn’t need to  be successful. Examine your goals and be sure they won’t put too much pressure on you.

How much recovery time do you need?  Writing takes a lot of focused energy and writing too much can tax your writing quality.  Plan how much time you need to stay away from writing. Savor the time you schedule to work on your WIP and honor your downtime as well.

Where are your energy levels?  Pushing through the tough times works when you have a Writer’s Block, but with Burnout, getting back to normal is a slow incline.  Pushing too hard can be counterproductive. Plan small breaks and reward yourself for the time you try to write.

Don’t overextend yourself

This topic is easier said than is exemplified in real life.  With effort and intention, you can regain your love of writing, through setting limits on your time and energy. Prioritize the important things in your life.  Perhaps these are parts of your life you ignored when power-writing in the past. Parts of your life that used to bring energy to your writing. You may not write as much as you once could, but it can be a time of writerly growth. Look for ways to find that writer fuel again.  Consider the following:

• Reconnect with friends, writing buddies, family. Make a phone call. Have a stress-free coffee date.
• Start up your neglected hobby.  Or try a new one.  It’s like a sneak attack on your creative block.  Your mind will appreciate the refreshing approach to creativity.
• Check in with your mental health and get support.  Find a counselor or support group that can address underlying issues that may have contributed to your burnout.  There are many community resources that can help.  Do a simple search for your local area and find resources that can assist your mental healthy journey.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself

You need to get your groove back.  That is more important than your word count right now.  Celebrate your successes and keep coming back to the keyboard.

In my future post, we'll look at causes of Burnout and how to reverse them. Some are familiar in our hard-working writing lives, like dealing with deadlines and other pressures to produce. Pressure is the creative enemy, as we will soon see.  We can also become over critical or demand perfection from ourselves, but it won’t help. Pressure leads to writing paralysis in the case of Burnout.

Keeping a balance perspective is one important way to notice whether you are overextending yourself, but what can we look for to avoid it? Next up in this series, we will explore many examples and causes of Writerly Burnout. 

Until next time, take care of you and know that even a baby step forward is positive progress.

What creative methods do you use to keep your writing mojo fresh?  Share what writing fuel works for you with our readers.

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her YA sci-fi and horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website which is currently getting some new fun features!

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors with her family.

by Lisa Norman

It seems like whenever I talk to folks about social media, someone brings up how toxic the environment is these days.

They're not wrong.

But there is a cure!

Take control of your social media platforms

I took a cooking class on how to use a knife. The teacher said one thing that stuck with me. "Remember, don't let the food tell you what to do. You're the one holding the knife."

In our social media experiences, it is easy to get swept up in the drama and carried away. We focus on numbers, quantity instead of quality.

We see the urgent, the surface level.

And social media becomes a danger zone that we avoid rather than the powerful marketing tool we need it to be.

Don't let the trolls define your social media presence. You're the one in charge. You're the one holding the metaphorical knife. Don't be afraid to use it!

Here are some techniques to detox your social media platform.

#1 - Create a Persona

Think about who you are as a writer. Think about who you want to be. If you were going to present in front of a large group of people, would you wear your sweat pants? Maybe you would. If that's your persona — no judgment from me!

But most people would dress up.

We don't see this as lying. This is just presenting our best public face.

Are you the same person when you go to a concert as you are sitting around watching Netflix? Yes. But you probably present yourself differently.

These are all variations on our persona.

As an author on social media, you want to present your best social media persona.

I knew an author who was known for hard-hitting, gritty adventure stories. These were not nice stories. He was not nice on social media. In real life, he was polite, kind, and helpful. But on social media, he was a total jerk.

Why did this work for him? Because his fans loved it. He had fun with it. This was the side of his personality that his fans wanted to see.

As a human being, he was both nice and a jerk. He wasn't lying when he was being nice, nor was he lying when he was being a jerk. He showed people the side of his personality that they wanted to see.

Who do your fans expect to see?

The reason they have these expectations is based on our style promise, the stories that we choose to write, and the author's voice that we use.

How does this help detox your social media?

It gives you space. This persona is like a suit of armor — or a business suit — that you put on before going into this public arena.

It can also keep you from making costly mistakes.

Think about your persona before you post.

For example, if you write sweet romance, your fans probably don't expect you to be posting triggering political comments.

#2 - Learn how the platforms work

Each platform has its own method for choosing who you follow and who can post to your feed.

Take a few minutes to learn how to:

• follow — and unfollow — people
• mute someone permanently or temporarily
• delete a comment on a post
• ban someone from posting to your feed
• report someone for misconduct or if reporting is allowed

Then judiciously apply these new tools.

Example: a friend of mine got really worked up about a topic and started posting all over social media about it. This particular topic was triggering for me. It made me feel sick every time I saw it. I tried to talk to her privately, but she was adamant.

I didn't want to unfollow her. She's a friend. I wanted to see other things that were going on in her life. But that topic was toxic to my sanity.

So, I muted her for a couple of weeks. Then I unmuted her and checked. She'd moved on.

We stayed friends and I didn't have to see the toxic sludge.

#3 - Guard your space — for yourself and your fans

We're writers. Our fans are often coming to us to escape from reality.

We have a responsibility to make our space safe for them. We also have a responsibility to ourselves and our families to keep ourselves as sane as possible.

As creatives, our creative muse is a fragile creature. It doesn't take too much to damage that creativity. If we want to write, we need to protect our muse.

We need to know the available tools and we need to apply them.

#4 - Never feed the trolls

In social media, some people are just trolls. They ask for money. They spout nonsense or spew profanity, not because there is an actual problem but because they are trolls. This is what trolls do.

If you acknowledge them, they multiply. They bring their friends.

Ban them, delete them, ignore them. They'll get bored and go bother someone else.

#5 - Have fun with social media

I first learned telemarketing many years ago. My boss told me that when I was on the phone I should have a mirror in front of me. I needed to make sure I was smiling.

People are attracted to people who are having fun.

You can hear a smile even through a telephone or a mask.

You can tell if someone is having fun on social media.

People are attracted to fun.

If you take part in a toxic social media environment because you think you need to in order to sell books, guess what? It probably won't work. You won't be having fun.

A Cautionary Tale

We've all seen examples of toxic social media. I recently saw one person battle — and survive — a toxic moment on social media. With his permission, I'd like to show you what happened, what he did wrong, and how he course-corrected to come out on top.

I'm a big fan of a TikTok personality, "Old Trucker." He is a truck driver who has a cat named Popeye as his companion in the truck.

Here's one of his most popular videos:

https://www.tiktok.com/@old_trucker/video/7056517534186589487

The persona: Let's think about Trucker's persona: he's cheerful, and... it really is mostly about the cat. He covers other topics occasionally, and as I've gotten to know him over a few months of watching his videos, I've become interested in the house he's building, the routes he's driving, and of course... the cat.

What happened

A troll, possibly more than one, began impersonating him and trying to extort money from his fans and from him.

Compare the popular video above to this one:

https://www.tiktok.com/@old_trucker/video/7062250663648120110

Remember his persona. People want joy and cheerfulness from him. They don't want sad trucker. Look at that second video again. See how that toxicity has affected his presentation? It is painful to watch. There were other videos, even worse, but TikTok has removed them. Yes, you heard that right. TikTok deleted his videos, but not the troll's fake accounts.

A bunch of folks popped in and encouraged him to ignore the troll.

How the platform works: TikTok is much more likely to ban you for being aggressive to a troll than to ban the troll. He tried to report the troll, and TikTok retaliated against him for posting videos about the troll. But fans can report the troll as an impersonator.

Now, let's play a game. Can you tell the trucker from the trolls?

The real Old Trucker has over 363 thousand followers. The fakes aren't even touching a fraction of his followers. In fact, it doesn't take much work to spot the real one. If you look at their profiles, they have fewer videos.

What he did wrong

He fed the troll. When a friend told him about the troll asking them for money, he didn't tell the friend to report it. He took action. He thought he could scare the troll into backing down.

The troll reported him for harassment and almost got Old Trucker kicked off TikTok.

Trucker wanted to protect his fans. But here's the thing: his fans are pretty smart people. They're not generally just going to give money to a random stranger. You see, Old Trucker doesn't ask for money. He just shares his joy and his cat.

How he course-corrected to come out on top

He realized that in order to protect his fans, he also needed to take care of himself. He found his joy.

His fans have rallied around and are sharing the information for him, reporting the fake.

Here's a more recent video:

https://www.tiktok.com/@old_trucker/video/7063439083313450287

On that video, someone tried to bait him into talking politics. Here's his response:

As you can see in previous videos. I keep my page free of politics. My page is not a political outlet.

Old Trucker - keeping his platform safe!

That is how you keep your social media safe for your fans. It is respectful and clear. If someone violates that policy, he can remove their comment and block them from posting on his stream. He’s learned how to use his tools.

And now we have more joyous, encouraging cat videos!

Have you seen toxicity on social media? What can you do to protect yourself and your fans? Please bring your stories and any questions down to the comments!

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, an indie publishing firm. She teaches for Lawson Writer's Academy.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? See her teaching schedule below.

Classes:

• March: Crazy Easy Social Media for Authors
• May: Digital Organization Skills for Authors
• June: Crazy Easy Awesome-Author Websites

Credits:

Sad Troll Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

Old_Trucker's example used with permission. Cat image is a still from one of Trucker's videos. Now that's a happy, relaxed cat!