5 Tips for Coming Back to Writing After You’ve Been Sick

The downside of being human is that our bodies are not perfect, infallible structures. Sickness is a part of our life here on earth, and being sick sucks. There’s nothing nice about feeling cruddy.

For a writer, illness saps mental and physical energy, and it’s really hard to come back to writing after you’ve been sick, or to keep writing if you battle a chronic illness.

Me? I battle both. I have Lyme disease and POTS, and while they are both under control, they still affect my immune system, meaning I catch the common cold easier than most people. Almost every October I end up with a head cold, and right now, I’m facing the early stages of thrush. Thank you, candida yeast.

So after something as physically and mentally draining as an illness, how do you get back up on the horse and start writing again?

Well my friends, today we are going to cover five tips that I’ve learned on how to get back into gear and start writing again after being sick.

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#1. Rest and Refill the Creative Well

The hardest lesson I’m learning as a writer is this: it’s okay to take breaks.

I’ve got an ADHD brain, meaning that I naturally prefer tasks that light up my hard-to-keep-firing prefrontal cortex (for those who are not brain nerds, the PFC is the part of the brain that controls focus and logic thinking skills). And writing, for me, fires up my PFC like nothing else in this world (except for maybe reading).

So it’s difficult for me to say “no, I’m taking a break” to writing. Especially when it’s hard for me personally to get back to my zenith of productivity after being sick, and I struggle through all the steps of getting back up to speed. Thus, most of the time in the past, I’ve struggled and kept on writing even though I was mentally and physically burning and crashing.

Thankfully, after some major crash-and-burns this spring, I’m finally allowing myself to take breaks in my writing to just refill my creative well and relax until my body is back up to speed for writing again.

Some ways you can do that:

• Reading. Being sick is a great time to knock out that summer TBR (that is, if you don’t have something that would make reading difficult, like a headache). I personally prefer my “potato chip” books, short, easily consumed novels that I’ve reread over and over again that I can just bask in the glory of them and the memories they hold.
• Spending time outside. Not only is the vitamin D from the sun really great for your immune system, there’s something really calming about walking around outside. I’ve got 65 acres to roam, but my favorite place is the poultry pen and the goat yard. I prefer the poultry pen because there’s less dust, and I am just a bird person. I love sitting down and watching my favorite birds mill around me. The goats are great too, but they usually demand petting XD.
• Movie/TV binge watching. Not the best of ideas, since too much technology isn’t good either, but sometimes, watching a good movie is really what you need for your creative well. Most vivid memory of being sick is watching a childhood favorite, The Adventures of Milo and Otis, even though I was feverish and half-delirious. I love that movie dearly. If I had to choose one movie series to really binge, however, it would be Signed, Sealed, Delivered. Twelve movies and two 45 minute episode seasons. And set in a dead letter office? Like seriously, go watch those movies. You will learn excellent character dynamics, the fundamentals of writing a mystery, how to write amazing and adorable slow-burn romance and even get some cool postal service trivia.
• Craft something. Fill up that sketchbook you’ve never touched. Learn to knit. Try rainbow rubber band bracelets (I’ve made so many of those in down time when I was younger…). Not only is learning a new skill good for the brain, but it also serves as writing research. And you might be able to craft something cool that’s related to your book!
• Try out audio dramas or audiobooks. There is something about listening to a story play out that really helps your storytelling skills. I grew up on Adventures in Odyssey and Your Story Hour, and I firmly believe those programs helped me in my writing journey (I… even attempted an AIO fanfic *cough* don’t ask). As a young adult, I now binge audiobooks. Some of the AIO adventures can be a little cheesy (especially in recent years), but there are still lots of great albums! Personally, I would recommend 28 Hours, The Ties that Bind, The Green Ring Conspiracy, The Meltsner Saga, The Novacom Saga, and the Blackgaard collection. And anything with Wooton Basset XD. For audiobooks, I recommend Fawkes by Nadine Brandes, Coral by Sara Ella, The Chaos Grid (my current read) by Lyndsey Lewellen, the Calculated series by Nova McBee, and The Fireborn Epic by Gillian Bronte Adams.
• Handwrite something. This can be a journal entry, a oneshot from your novel, a letter to a friend, or even a message to your future self. There’s something about handwriting that kicks the brain into gear and switches up from staring at the screen of your computer. I’ve filled over a dozen journals over the years, and I have a special, no-line notebook that I write secret snippets in that I don’t want to share with anyone else. Journals are a great place to be able to write the stuff that you may not feel comfortable writing anywhere else. They’re a place to experiment safely. Besides, there’s something satisfying about rereading handwritten stories. Most of my first drafts used to be handwrites. One novel went through three handwritten drafts before I finally typed it out.

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#2 Reassess Your Writing Capabilities

This the part I usually dread after being off of writing for a while. I take pride in the extensive wordcounts I can achieve when focused, and it’s hard to accept smaller wordcount goals after being sick.

But this is the time to buckle down and be honest with yourself. Maybe the 500 words you usually write daily is too much. Maybe you need to scale down to one hundred. For me, at the zenith of my writing experience I was getting 1.5k done daily, save for Sundays. After a major crash during the end of the school year, I tried to scale down to one thousand and ended up not touching my writing at all.

So I got real, and went down to 200 words. It felt like such an underachievement, because I’m a fast typist, and I can write 200 words really quickly. Except then, even getting to 200 was a struggle.

I did that for a week. Then I went up to 300. Then 500. Then 750.

I’m glad to say now, two months after the initial crash, I’m up to 1k to 1.2k a day, save for Sundays (If my thrush gets worse, I will probably need to scale back again).

So start slow. Every writer is different, and that’s okay. If fifty words is all you can handle, then do fifty words. Assess where you are mentally and creatively, and work back up towards your old writing goals as slow as you need.

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#3 Don’t Overwhelm Yourself With a Thousand “To-Dos”

Ah, prioritizing. Sometimes, that is the bane of my existence. I’m a mood worker, of sorts, so it’s hard for me to prioritize something I don’t feel like doing.

But if you have a thousand writing projects and you’re just coming back from sickness, a million things to do is going to burn you out and exhaust you. Trust me on this. During my last crash, I had a WIP, my email list, two blog posts a week to write (one fiction, one nonfiction), a website to run, and a lead magnet to write.

Talk about exhausting.

So, scale back and look at all your writing projects. Which have to be done if all else fails, which are high priority, and which ones can be set aside for a bit?

For me, the blog was a “must-do”. I needed to keep my content consistent, especially since my website is still so new. But I scaled back to one blog post a week, alternating between fiction and nonfiction. Not only did this ease up what I needed to do weekly, but I also wasn’t getting burnt out on just fiction or just nonfiction. As for my email list, I scaled back to once a month instead of twice a month. For my WIP, it was a high priority item, but I went to 200 words roughly every other day. And the lead magnet? I had to set that aside until I got back to my old self.

So list out all your writing projects, and look at what needs to get done, what’s high priority, and what you can set aside. Be honest with yourself. It’s okay to set something on the backburner for a while. You will come back to it stronger and have better work if you let it rest.

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#4 Switch Things Up

Sometimes, if jumping back into your writing routine is turning out more difficult than expected, switching things up can really help you get back on track.

For example, I used to write at my antique desk in my room, in the afternoons. After being sick, I was really struggling with writing in the afternoons, especially in a place with so many distractions as my bedroom. So I decided to switch back to my “golden days” of writing special spot: the balcony in the early morning.

People, it was the magic fix. I’m writing to you now on the cluttered balcony, with a healing injured chicken pecking away in her crate, the mist rising from the trees in the golden sunlight, the cats sleeping at my feet and the geese squabbling over… something. It’s relatively quiet, I have gorgeous natural aesthetic, and when it rains… oh it’s so nice to write when it rains.

So switch things up. Change where you write. Try some short stories. Write your main character in a different genre. Test a new word processor (I recommend Dabble on the free trial or Scrivener. Dabble is super simple to work with and Scrivener, though a bit of a learning curve, has SO many great features). Sometimes changing up things helps your brain restart and get back to where you need to be.

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#5 In Case of Burnout… Stop

These days, I don’t suffer from writer’s block– I suffer from burnout. And sometimes, it’s really hard to tell whether you’re just being lazy (writer’s slump, where writing is more a chore than fun) or facing burnout with writing.

When you’re getting back to writing after being sick, (and I cannot stress this enough), take it easy. Take it slow. I had to learn this the hard way. I pushed myself too hard to get back to my zenith after being sick, and I ended up with such major burnout I went off my project for over a month. Please, please, please, be kind to yourself, and if you are facing burnout, slow down or even stop.

How do you tell if you’re facing burnout or writer’s slump?

A pretty good indication of burnout is the excuses you make. If you are really trying to get back on writing but it feels like a mental teeth-pulling session, you might be just suffering from burnout. If you’re kinda-sorta-maybe trying to get back on writing and you’re looking for excuses to not write… well, that’s probably writer’s slump.

Also, look at your past projects. For me, I’ve been able to finish what I start, which was a pretty good indication that I was dealing with burnout, not writer’s slump. If you have a habit of starting projects, getting bored, and switching to something else, it’s probably writer’s slump, and you just need to buckle down and keep writing.

Identifying what is true procrastination and what is your brain screaming at you to slow down is key. Procrastination, according to the dictionary, is “the enemy that all writers face that immediately shoves everything else you want to do instead of what you should do, which is writing”.

I’m joking XD it doesn’t actually say that (it’s the writer’s definition). Webster’s Dictionary describes it as

 “To put off intentionally and habitually,”

or

“To put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done”

Webster’s Dictionary

Procrastination is the main symptom of both writer’s slump and burnout. But the root cause of procrastination is the key. Are you procrastinating because you don’t want to write, or procrastinating because you’re honestly too tired to write?

Be really honest with yourself. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that you’re facing burnout and you need to take a break– it’s hard for me. But your brain and your story will thank you for taking that break. It’s better to write something on a mentally active brain than a struggling-to-keep-going burnout brain.

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Take it from a girl who hates taking breaks from writing– this isn’t easy. Slowing down in a world that tells us we are always falling behind is hard. We are in a culture with a go-go-go mindset, where to be successful you must run faster, work harder, and always be the best.

But you don’t have to be the best when it comes to writing. It’s better to take things slow and learn how to healthily balance writing within your life than to push hard and end up so burnt out you can’t keep going. In the words of YA author Kara Swanson,

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Kara Swanson, author of the Heirs of Neverland duology and the Phoenix Flame duology.

(Kara’s dealt with some major chronic illnesses, so she should know!)

That sentence may be one of the most true statements you will ever find about writing. It’s not a race to see who gets published first. It’s about cultivating stories that make a difference in the world.

So, writer, take a breath, look at your writing and your health, and if you need to take a break… take a break. There is no shame in saying that you can’t keep running at this speed. And if you slow down, you might find yourself running beside others in the same place as you.

What are your favorite ways to refill your creative well? How do you tell if you are facing burnout? Share below!