How to Recover from Writer’s Burnout
Five ways to heal your relationship with writing
At some point in your writing career, you might’ve found yourself dreading to write. It wasn’t writer’s block — you weren’t stuck.
You could still get words out, know the direction of the story, and produce decent content, but you were going through the motions. You might’ve felt apathetic, resigned, overwhelmed, and even hopeless.
Writer’s burnout can happen for various reasons. It could be due to pressure to meet personal or professional standards, constant rejections, or the result of personal stressors. So when writing feels like a chore, how do we rediscover the joy and restore motivation?
Reassess your motivation
Psychologists distinguish how extrinsic and intrinsic motivation affect our behavior. Extrinsic motivation refers to performing behaviors for a reward or to avoid punishment. The focus is on external rewards — like earning your paycheck at your job. For writers, this often means things you can quantify like publication, money, and fame.
Unfortunately for aspiring writers, we can fall into the trap of treating our writing like our day jobs. It’s important to acknowledge that it’s not simple to quantify the creative process and put a price tag on…
