Has anyone ever gone on a long hiatus from writing? How long was it? What was it like to live without writing, and what was it like to get back to it if you ever did?
Personally for me, I haven't truly written since November of last year where I
...
nearly finished my fourth draft. From 2016 to 2018, writing was my life and treated it like a full time job,but never got around trying to get my book published because I either knew it could be better.
Yet now, despite my fifth draft being significantly better in theory, I still haven't had enough motivation or excitement to actually sit down and write it. My first draft just flowed through me, the second draft was a battle between the first and second halves of it, but I finished it.
The third draft was probably written almost as quickly as the first, but the fourth, despite of all the discipline I developed to write every day and log my word count, not to mention the extensive outlining I did to structure it soundly--I didn't finish.
I just gave up.
I got tired of writing the same story for the third time in a row since draft 1 was its own complete monster, drafts 2-4 were the same kinda story with more or less improvement here and there...
And now?
The fifth draft stands at the precipice of my mind as possibly the best version the story ever could be, yet I don't even want to write it. I've set time for it and didn't honour it. I just don't feel it anymore.
I feel like I need to quit writing for a long time because no matter how much I understand how wrong it is to do this intellectually--I really cannot shake the feeling of trying to write just to justify all my money and time invested in studying creative writing.
There's no joy in it, even if I try to write something just for myself, I feel like I'm wasting my time. So yeah...I think I have to quit or I might end up resenting all the time I've spent writing and not getting published.
I will always have a keen eye for storytelling and what makes certain shows, books, and movies, special to me, and possibly others, and I don't want to lose that ability by trying to live up to my studied self...
