Dear Writer: Don't Forget to Live

I have been so caught up in my to-do lists and work that I have forgotten to live.

Sure, I'm breathing and eating and sleeping but I’m barely existing. I'm stuck in this endless cycle of trying to stay ahead of where I think I should be. And somehow, I never reach that place. I find myself saying that I'll rest tomorrow or slow down next week but life just keeps building momentum until I can hardly breathe much less enjoy life. 

I tried getting as much as I could done but ended up exhausted. I tried avoiding everything by procrastinating and ended up more anxious than before. Through it all, writing seemed like just one more stressful thing to do.

Stack of newspapers in an outdoor art installation

But then my friends and I decided to take a spontaneous girls weekend to the mountains to relax and refresh. We sang and danced in the car, we bought silly little trinkets to remember our time, we randomly decided to swim in a freezing cold lake, we lived and breathed in the moment. And for the first time in a long time, I was actually living life.

I didn't fret that I had things to do at home. I wasn't worried that I hadn't read in 3 days. I didn't freak out that I never finished writing that chapter. Instead, I was living side by side with friends, tasting yummy ice cream on my tongue and feeling rocks beneath my feet and letting the sun burn my face. Instead of cringing when I thought about writing my story, I found my mind wandering to it occasionally in an inspired way instead.

On the ride home, however, I realized I didn't even have a blog post ready for today. Worry started to set in but that's when I realized that it was okay. I lived life. In fact, I enjoyed living. And that is way more important than one more book read or one more chapter written or one more blog post finished. Don't get me wrong, reading and writing are my two favorite hobbies but I've been running on fumes for so long that even the things I enjoyed doing were becoming exhausting.

So today, I’m here to give you permission to step back for a little and do something that replenishes your soul instead of draining it.

Lake adventures in the mountains 

I was once told that you can't write without living life. If you are holed away from the world, just trying to eek out one more word onto paper, you can't experience what you’re writing. How do you know what a lake smells like without standing on the shore? How do you know what trees sounds like without getting lost in them? How do you know what adventure feels like without living it? 

As writers, we have so many deadlines (both internal and external) and it can be so difficult to let ourselves take a break. If your car runs out of gas, you fill it back up - not let it run on fumes! Same goes for creativity. If you have been running from one thing to the next in life without stopping, your writing it going to take a hit. Allowing yourself to take a break and actually live and enjoy life will add more layers to your writing than if you didn’t.

So all that to say, go on that trip, go bake that cake, go crank that music. Take care of yourselves, writers. And don't forget to live a little. Your novel can wait ;)

Until next time!

~ K.J. Haakenson