It’s been a while since I posted anything here and there are good reasons for that. But it’s taken a while to work out what they are.

I was busily engaged in writing my third book and it was all coming together quite well. The road was not without bumps but there was nothing that felt insurmountable. One day I was rolling along stringing words together, crossing them out, and restringing them. Happily. And the next I stopped. Completely. It wasn’t classic writer’s block as it wasn’t that I lacked ideas—I just didn’t want to carry on. It was such a definite feeling of coming to a halt that I was not at all sure if I would ever write again. 

I was mystified as like so many other things in life, I didn’t see this coming. It left me feeling like a blank page—I knew I was there but I had no instructions. When anyone asked, “How’s the writing going?” I’d say that I’d stopped. And because I hadn’t expected that to happen, then I had no way of knowing what would happen next. 

It was a similar feeling to the one I had when I lost all motivation to read. A void where you know there is something that was once important to you but you have no idea how to access it. The reading void lasted several years. 

It’s lucky that I’m retired and so I’m not dependent on earning a living from writing. That meant I could justify to myself, that stopping was OK. It really really was fine. I’d already learned a lot from the research and writing I’d done in the several years I’ve worked on this project. And I’d enjoyed it so much that if it was never to go any further then it had still been worthwhile. That effort wasn’t wasted.  

For the first few weeks I felt like I was fighting an addiction. I’m so used to jotting down random ideas in a notebook or on my phone’s voice memo app, that it felt wasteful to let interesting stubs of conversation and other good material evaporate. They might come in handy I would think and then I would have to remind myself that I wasn’t writing anymore and so they wouldn’t. I resisted the squirrel urge and resolved instead to live in the moment. 

I found other things to fill my time. And I suddenly had a lot more of it. The garden got some attention, I went for more walks and I thought more carefully about what to cook. I could enjoy seeing friends without half my brain being distracted by the structure of the next chapter. It was a huge relief and I found myself thoroughly enjoying freedom from the shackles. I even started to wonder why I ever did the writing in the first place. 

There were hurdles to navigate though, as so much of my retired life has been structured around writing. I’m on the committee of the local writing society and didn’t feel I could own up there that I was no longer a writer. Instead I kept quiet but I felt like a fraud. I was honest with my writing group friends as that’s the best place to share these kinds of ups and downs. But everyone is different and so no-one had any answers. They were kind and didn’t threaten to eject me but I did wonder how long I could keep turning up if I wasn’t producing anything.  

I spent the Spring and early summer bobbing along—never bored and with many things to be grateful for. But still puzzled. 

Then by chance I read an article in The Guardian about a woman who had chronic burnout after a stressful time at work, and took a year off to do nothing. She stopped replying to emails, slept a lot, borrowed a friend’s dog, and ate bananas in bed. She acknowledges that she was lucky to be able to take this break but it captured my interest as it set me thinking about rhythms of busyness and rest. Then further on in the article came something that really did make me sit up and take notice. I’d never thought about needing different kinds of rest. I do some strenuous weeding and I take a nap, or the music’s too loud so I turn it down, or there’s a lot going on emotionally and I go for a walk. I’d call all these things rest or taking a break. But physician and researcher Saundra Dalton Smith says that we need seven different types of rest. Physical, mental, emotional, sensory and social I can relate to. Spiritual I’m still thinking about. And then there’s the final one—creative. 

“That’s it!” I thought. “I’m having a creative rest.”  And it made sense. I retired just before the pandemic and threw myself into what I enjoy doing—researching and writing. But in some ways it’s too absorbing and interesting and I struggle to get a balance. I’ve experimented with various strategies—working on it for a set number of hours each day…or only on set days…getting up early… but my life is erratic with plenty of other things that demand my attention and so any kind of pattern invariably breaks down. Simply fitting it in when I can, doesn’t cut it, as it just gets squeezed out.  

I still had no way of knowing if this writing void was a permanent state but at least I had a way to think about it. And the pattern that had led to it. But after about four months, despite my protestations that everything was good, I started feeling that something was missing. I like doing those gardening, cooking socialising things but for me they don’t come into the same category as writing does when it’s going well. If you regularly lose yourself in painting, sewing playing the piano…or whatever other activity absorbs you so much that you lose track of time, then you’ll know what I mean. That’s flow and apparently it is very good for our well-being. It was first described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced me-high chick-sent-me-high). The activity needs to be challenging enough that you have to concentrate on it, but not so difficult that it causes you genuine stress.   

Then unexpectedly a few weeks ago I got the urge to open my computer and to click on the long-neglected book files. I started tinkering about. No pressure. And a couple of hours passed. It seemed like minutes. I was back in the flow.

One of the disadvantages of this state is that it makes life seem to pass even faster than normal. But I’m not complaining as I’m now whizzing along with a third draft. I’m constantly striving to find some kind of balance but it never feels achievable because something, somewhere has to give. I’m wobbling along on my bicycle. Almost inevitably I will at some stage fall off again. Then it will be time for another creative rest. It might be short or it might be prolonged but hopefully next time I’ll recognise it when I see it. 

As always comments are welcome. If you’ve experienced anything similar—or different—in any domain of rest, then I’d love to hear about it. You can reply using the comments feature or email me on 60treatsandmore@gmail.com and I’ll post the comment for you.