B Plot
Let’s state a few things about mental health. Experiencing a mental health illness doesn’t make you weak or flawed. People fall ill with COVID, cancer, colds and other illnesses that don’t begin with c, all of the time. There are resources for individuals experiencing a mental health illness. (1)
What most new writers don’t recognise is that writing is a grind. Sure, there are moments where it’s fun and exciting to write a character or a scene. Typing the end is absolutely a wonderful feeling. And it’s a fantastic feeling to sell your first book.
Here’s the other side of writing. Editing your WIP for the twentieth time. Staring at a screen, waiting for the words to come. Struggling to find a solution to your plot hole that doesn’t require you to rewrite half of your story. The isolation. To develop your skill as a writer, you need to spend a lot of time alone in a room. Many people don’t do well in isolation, especially for prolonged periods. There’s the added difficulty that most non-writers don’t understand the appeal of writing. That adds a layer to the isolation.
There’s a grind to writing. Churning out five hundred words a day seems easy until you have to do it. Pile edits onto those five hundred words, and it takes a toll. It can be mentally draining to sit in front of a computer and crank out the words, especially when those words are subject to constant critique. Many people appreciate the talent and skill of a professional athlete. Most people don’t recognise the blood, sweat, and tears that go into a manuscript. The work involved in creating a polished manuscript is difficult to explain to a non-writer.
How to stay mentally tough? Adopt a healthy self-care regime. This means eating well, exercising regularly, getting away from the computer daily, scheduling time for friends and family, and scheduling writing time.
People who want to be writers feel guilty not writing because they don’t make time for it. Then, when they do make time for it, they feel isolated from friends and family. The key to that is finding the right balance. Permit yourself to write. It’s okay to close your office door to work. It’s okay to ask your partner to look after your child while you take thirty or sixty minutes to write.
New authors often don’t realise how much rejection there is to writing. Reviewers spot all errors and plot issues. Agents and publishing companies reject manuscripts. Reviewers and readers leave negative comments on public fora. Then there’s the occasional reader who will contact you and point each issue they had with your book, not with the intent of supporting you in becoming a better writer but destroying you and discouraging you from writing the next book.
None of these things boosts morale or ego. All of these things, except the nasty email, are required to be a writer.
Joy.
How to stay mentally fit as a writer? Learn to learn. People wrongly believe that professional athletes are born that way. Top-performers in any field spend years improving their skills and adopt a learning mindset. There is always something to learn, improve upon, and hone.
Surround yourself with positive people. Every author needs beta readers but select beta readers that are helpful and supportive of you. Yes, some criticism can be difficult to swallow, but it can drive you to improve when it comes from a well-intentioned place.
Know when to take a break. Some authors can write every day, and others can’t. There are periods in a person’s life where disaster strikes, and they can’t write. There are constraints on physical and mental health that impede the ability of an author to write. Life happens, and it’s okay to step away from writing to sort things out.
Learn to recognise the signs of burnout (2). Burnout is often accompanied by depression, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, an overwhelming workload, and a desire to strive and be at the top of your profession. It’s a terrible condition that strikes the ambitious who push themselves too hard. The worst part about burnout is that once you have one, it often takes years to recover. Once recovered, a burnout survivor is unlikely to resume activities that once gave them joy or their previous profession.
Preventing burnout is far easier and better than trying to recover from one. And honestly, one doesn’t really recover from burnout. Like PTSD survivors, even a decade after burnout, you can be triggered by something and relapse.
Mental fitness requires a daily regimen. It requires experimentation to find out which routine and practice works best for you. It requires self-awareness to know when you’re struggling and need to take a break or reach out to resources. Perhaps, more importantly, it requires that you be kind to yourself.
The world is harsh enough. You don’t need to add to it by being brutal to yourself.
Writing is meant to be rewarding. Make sure the rewards include fulfilment and joy.
I'd like to thank @AuthorIvanScott for the topic suggestion.
Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @reneegendron to continue the conversation.
If you liked this post, please consider leading $1. I'm raising funds for a professional book cover for James' and Mirabelle's story. There's a donation tab in the top left hand corner of the screen called Ko Fi. You can read a bit of the mystery in James' and Mirabelle's story here. Over the summer, I'll be posting a section of the romance element. You can receive an advance section of the romance element by signing up for my newseltter.
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(1)
https://www.ccmhs-ccsms.ca/mental-health-resources-1
https://www.mhfa.ca/en/general-resources
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-services/mental-health-get-help.html
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health-resources#types-of-providers
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/getting-help
https://mhaustralia.org/need-help
2
https://myparo.ca/6-signs-of-burnout-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/