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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years ago

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hey so i'm hoping to get some writing advice about creative burnout? like i seem to write in fits and spurts. some months i can churn out a oneshot or chapter everyday and some months i can do one (1) creative thing only. so i'm wondering how to prevent creative burnout and how to just create more smoothly <3 thank you!

Creative Burnout & How To Ward Against It

First, I’d like to preface this all by saying you’re definitely not alone. You probably already know this, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded.

I know from personal experience that creative burnout can leave you feeling hopeless, detached from yourself—the kind of identity crisis no one needs in 2020.

So buckle in, folks. It’s a dosy.

I. The Symptoms

Not to be the local WebMD page here, but signs of burnout can include:

Procrastination (more than usual)

Dreading writing and feeling stuck or overly perfectionistic when you try

Physical tiredness and/or irritability

Feeling like everything is monotonous

It’s more than just writer’s block. It’s a physical and emotional exhaustion response to something that goes deeper than a simple lack of inspiration. In my experience, and from a bit of research, I’ve found that what your brain is really looking for is dopamine.

Dopamine is essentially your brain’s chemical reward system for doing something interesting or exciting to you. As someone who is diagnosed with ADHD, I have chronically low levels of dopamine, so this is a constant struggle for me—but it is absolutely made worse by creative burnout.

II. The Problem

Studies have shown that the more we do A Thing the less that thing will give us dopamine (unless a component of the activity changes regularly). This is because eventually our brains desensitise to the stimuli provided by the activity, and subsequently, we become disengaged.

But it’s not necessarily The Thing (i.e. writing) that becomes boring. Actually, more than a few factors could be at play here, and the first step to finding a solution is to identify the problem.

1. ENVIRONMENT LACKS EXCITEMENT/CHANGE—

Sometimes, the monotony of everyday life can feed creative burnout. This becomes especially applicable in quarantine when you’re not leaving your house.

What we don’t realise is that even something as small as the variables of driving to and from work, or interacting with passing coworkers, gives us dopamine. So if you have the same routine every day that does not involve any added variables, your brain will begin staunching that dopamine supply.

2. EITHER TOO EASY OR TOO CHALLENGING—

In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, coined the term “flow”, which refers to a heightened state of creativity and concentration on an activity. Csikszentmihalyi posited that if your skill level is equal to the level of challenge in any given activity, you will experience this state of flow.

The chart below is taken from Csikszentmihalyi’s own study on the subject of flow and motivation. It examines “your skill level” on the x axis in relation to the “challenge level” on the y axis.

Essentially:

Too much challenge + not enough skill = anxiety, worry (which might lead to procrastination and perfectionism)

Too much skill + not enough challenge = boredom, apathy (which might lead to monotony, irritability, and other depression-like symptoms)

Skill level = Challenge level = Flow

3. NOT ENOUGH “ACTIVE” STIMULATION—

When it comes to dopamine seeking, there is a distinct difference between active and passive stimulation in the brain.

Active stimulation is any form of activity that you have to actively engage in. For instance; exercising, doing a crossword puzzle, or reading a book. These kinds of activities not only give you dopamine, they also facilitate critical thinking and problem solving thought processes, which act as catalysts for creativity.

Passive stimulation, on the other hand, comes in the form of television, social media, and YouTube. It’s anything you can consume without having to actively engage. Passive stimulation will indeed give your brain dopamine, however, it won’t activate your creativity.

The problem also lies in the speed at which you receive the dopamine from passive activities. Passive stimulation is so easy to access that the more you consume, the harder it becomes to pick up active stimulation. Your brain expects a hit of dopamine just by picking up a phone or turning on the TV—it becomes addicted to the quick fix of a Netflix binge.

III. The Solutions

Based on the problems mentioned above, I am going to list a few solutions. Keeping in mind that not every solution will work for everyone, these can act as both preventative measures and remedies for someone who is currently burned out.

1. CHANGE UP YOUR ENVIRONMENT/ROUTINE—

Aim to do at least one thing per day that will add “variables” to the monotony. This can be as simple as going on a long walk, dressing up in that bold outfit you always wanted to wear to the office but never did, or sitting at a different workspace in your home.

Anything you can do that’s simple, but might provide an extra variable to your day to spice things up. Note: this shouldn’t be the same thing every day.

2. CHALLENGE YOURSELF MORE—

If you find yourself bored by your work, try challenging yourself more. This could mean setting goals for yourself that go a bit beyond what you’ve been doing.

For example, if you’ve been writing 500 words per day, see if you can beat your own word count every day for the next week. If you’ve been writing mainly fluff pieces, switch it up and do an angst piece. See if you can write a book in a month, or start a blog where you don’t write fiction at all!

Anything you can do to add a little kick to your workload. Note: Beware of challenging yourself too much! This can lead straight back into burnout.

3. CHALLENGE YOURSELF LESS—

If you’re on the flip side of that coin, and find that you are anxious, procrastinating, and perfectionistic when it comes to writing, fret not. Just because you’re experiencing any of these things, doesn’t mean you’re incapable of doing the job with your skillset.

It just means your perception of the job needs to be shifted.

Procrastination, at its heart, is a fear of failure, which results in actively avoiding the negative emotions associated with the task that causes this fear. Perfectionism is a type of procrastination that is a combination of a fear of failure and a fear of success (or, more accurately, other’s critiques of your success) all at once.

Neither have anything to do with your actual skillset, but they have everything to do with your perception of your skillset. Obviously, this is a harder thing to fix, as it has to do with deeply ingrained levels of self-esteem.

What I can offer you is a tactic to trick your mind into thinking you’re capable.

If you have a task, big or small, and you are feeling overwhelmed by it (like you might go curl up in bed and scroll Tumblr), immediately break that task up into smaller tasks. Keep breaking up the smaller tasks until you have the smallest possible part of the bigger task without doing nothing.

Then do that smallest possible thing.

If your goal is to write a 2000 word one shot, a small part of that task is writing half of it. An even smaller part of that task is breaking the one shot up into “scenes” and writing one scene. For instance:

Jude wakes up to a sore throat, a runny nose, and a fever.

She tries to go to work, but Cardan, being the mother hen that he is, threatens to never make her another grilled cheese sandwich (her favourite food) ever again if she doesn’t stay home.

Jude agrees begrudgingly, and Cardan sits her down in front of the TV with a bottle of Gatorade. He leaves to go get medicine from the store.

When Cardan comes back, Jude is worse than before. He makes her soup and saltine crackers and spoon feeds her.

She complains the whole time and, in her feverish state, threatens to never buy him another bottle of wine (his favourite food) ever again if he doesn’t let her feed herself.

Each bullet point represents one “scene” of about 200-400 words each. Obviously, there will be more details that you work out as you write. But with these five smaller scenes, your goal is no longer writing the 2000 word one shot. Your goal is writing the first of the five scenes.

If you complete the smallest possible task, you can stop, and you’ll still feel like you’ve accomplished something because you can cross off that task from your list. But chances are, by the time you cross off one task, you may have inspiration enough to keep going.

4. ENGAGE IN ACTIVE STIMULATION—

Since active stimulation has been proven to turn on the creative “tap”, try incorporating more of these activities into your daily routine:

Exercise: As the resident couch potato, I hate to say that exercising is good for creativity, but it is. Even if it’s just going on a short walk, so long as you’re moving.

Reading: Sometimes you have plenty of ideas, but no words to fit those ideas. Fill your well of words by carving out an hour or two each day for reading a good book.

The Creative Process: In the writing world, the creative process is a process of about 20-30 minutes that the writer partakes in every day before they start writing. This process should be creative, but also have nothing to do with writing. You can try colouring in a colouring book, painting, organising a page in your bullet journal. Anything that is creative but does not make you think about everything you have to do that day. Think of it as creative meditation.

Listen to music: Having APD, I personally can’t listen to music while I write. However, studies have shown that if you listen to at least ten songs per day, it will significantly benefit your dopamine levels and overall mood. If you’re like me and prefer to work in silence, maybe stick on a couple songs during your creative process. If you can manage music and writing together, get out those headphones!

5. KEEP A REGULAR SCHEDULE—

I know this is the most cliche point in the book, but it’s valid. This doesn’t mean do the same thing at the same time every day over and over, because ultimately we’re looking to avoid monotony.

But having pillars of structure to bolster the excitement can definitely work to keep you from slipping into burnout. Going to sleep, waking up, and having your meals at relatively the same time every day are good examples of this.

Feel free to change up the things you do between breakfast and lunch, but make sure you have those pillars of consistency so your brain knows that a break is on the horizon and doesn’t get tired.

6. PACE YOURSELF—

This is particularly difficult for those of us who are coming out of a creative burnout, but I urge you to pay special attention to this one. If we are suddenly hit by inspiration and the writing is flowing and flowing and flowing, eventually we will hit the point of highest dopamine capacity for writing.

Not putting a check on the flood of inspiration coming out of a creative burnout, I’d argue, is actually a guarantee that many of us will experience burnout all over again. It becomes this vicious cycle in which we are trapped.

While it feels great to write non-stop and receive immediate validation for that work, try to limit yourself to how much you’re writing and how immediately you post your writing (if you plan on posting it).

Whenever I finish a one shot or a chapter of something, I like to allow at least one day for editing before I post. This timeframe is important, because it acts as a buffer of rest between writing marathons.

You can take however long you need for the editing process, but definitely make sure you have a set amount of time in place. Otherwise, your brain might not have enough time to come down from what is essentially a writing high, and you will always need to reach greater heights in order to achieve that same level of dopamine.

~~~~

Overall, the most important things to take away from all of this are:

Change up your environment

Keep your brain actively stimulated

Have pillars of structure between which you can run about chaotically to your heart’s content

PACE YOURSELF!

Hope this helped. Happy writing!

-Em 🖤��

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