Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

One of the most popular pieces of writing “advice” (let’s be real, it’s not advice… it’s a collection of prescriptions meant to define worth and dedication that are often bullshit) is that you have to write every day. Technically, it’s not bad advice. I do believe writing is a skill that can atrophy and storytelling can be strengthened by forcing exploration on a daily basis. But I don’t think that daily writing has to be “productive” writing meant for consumption. We’re living in the period of consumption, with the need to produce every day, and we’ve sidelined the natural rhythms of creativity.

I know a lot of people who roil against the “write every day” advice have given some alternatives:

• Read when you’re not writing
• Daydreaming about your book counts as work on it

But I’d go as far to say that we don’t have to be productive towards our writing every day. You don’t have to read in your genre and you can absolutely make space to daydream about things not connected to your work-in-progress. Think about it — do you work seven days a week? Did you go to school all year round? Our brains are meant to have restorative breaks. And if we’re filling those breaks with “alternative forms of productivity”, they aren’t actually breaks.

I wouldn’t say I am burned out on writing, but I would say that I have a lot of mental fatigue from my “new” job these days and writing has been simmering on the back burner for more than a year. I’ve written the fewest shorts in my career, published only two stories, and not finished a novel this year. As a writer that’s terrifying. Part of that is because we live in a world where we are taught that if we’re not constantly in the public eye, we’ll lose momentum. We’re taught we have to build a brand and that brand has to constantly be in the public eye or we’ll be forgotten for the next shiny thing — especially if we haven’t established ourselves yet. That may be true, but for me, that pushes writing into the realm of content. “Content” feels like the fast fashion of the written world. It can still be fun and even artistic, but in the end it’s hurting the creative ecosystem, exploits creatives, and promotes the cycle of overconsumption. “Content” is what erodes our attention span, makes us want easy media with clear messaging, and makes it more and more difficult for artists to press the public into discomfort.

And yet, look at me blogging out my “content” for the first time in a decade. For me, these daily prompts have become part of my writing restoration. They have nothing to do with any of my books. They meander and explore. They do not require any creativity. I’m not thinking about sentence structure or theme. I’m just writing and enjoying it. I think THAT is the type of writing we need to do more often (although still not every day). Writing that feels unrestrained by production. Writing that will never make it into a book. Writing that won’t gain fans or build my brand. Just connecting with words. That is restorative for me.

So do rest days make me feel unproductive? Yes. And right now I’m still buying into guilt over that. But I’m working on having days that make me feel unproductive that I cherish. Think of that — living in a time when we are not required to produce every single day. Let us remember what it is to rest.