My first instinct was to answer this question with: I don't! That's the problem!
But let's see if I can do better than that.
So, I've been "selling out" a bit, as of late. By that I mean I've signed some contracts and taken some writing gigs that were purely for the money. Some of this was born out of necessity. (Three cheers for capitalism.) And I'm grateful for any opportunity to pay my bills doing what I love.
That is, until it ceases to be the thing I love.
Such has been my struggle for the last few months, as I dragged myself out from under the weight of commercial commitments and tried to rediscover the joy of the craft. And yes, I'm purposefully using a high falutin' word like "craft," because I'm trying to remind myself that my work is something that deserves to be taken seriously.
I'll be honest, this has been a tough year. For all kinds of reasons, none of which I'll bore you with now. Suffice it to say, there have been days (weeks?) when it's been tough to do any more than just get through. There have been plenty of times when a new draft, a set of revisions, or a half-finished outline have seemed so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that's why it was so easy to say yes to some of the soul-sucking writing assignments I've taken on, as of late. And maybe that's why it's taken such a toll on me.
Because yes, writing is hard. It can fill you with self doubt and make you question whether there's any merit to the way you see the world. It's not for the faint of heart. But the only thing that takes a bigger toll on my mental health than writing is not writing.
I discovered long ago that pen-to-paper (and, later, fingers-to-keys) was the way I made sense of the world around me. Crime fiction was a natural evolution of that impulse—the opportunity to sort the chaos of life into a narrative where things are solved. Maybe not completely. Maybe not perfectly. But it's a hell of a lot more control than I feel in the "real world" most days.
While I was burning myself out writing "content" (god, I hate that word) that I couldn't care less about, I was neglecting the one thing that could have pulled me out of my artistic depression. I've discovered—not for the first time, and not for the last—that I need to write.
I fear I didn't quite answer this very thoughtful question. I could come up with a list of things that have helped me in the past, healthy habits that I should get back to. I'll come back to read the sage advice of my fellow bloggers. I'm sure they'll have much more helpful things to share.
As for me, though, I'll just reflect on a moment I had this past week. My partner and I were on vacation in Dublin, and I snuck down to the hotel bar with a notebook and a pen. Fueled by gin and pent-up creative energy, I just let myself write. No expectations, no cell service, no contracts. And, liquor aside, those few minutes did a whole lot to heal me.
So, is writing the sickness or the cure? In my case, I think it's both.
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