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Blog Briefs: On Burnout, with Lucy Sussex

In which a bunch of authors & editors are invited to answer the question: How do you deal with creative exhaustion?

Lucy Sussex is one of those smart, intimidating writers. Here, she gives advice in TWO languages!

To have output you must have input. It helps to go on a period of creative nourishment, or dolce far niente, clearing the brain. Go to bed with the cat, some flouffy pillows, tea and a book which could not in any sense be called improving. Read for fun for a change: superior Chicklit is good, or children’s classics. You are not allowed to try and analyse what the author is doing. After a good sleep, go and do something new, or that you haven’t done for a while. Gals, buy some decent underwear, it always makes you feel better. Stroll around the artists’ markets, or go op-shopping. Catch up with some interesting people, who talk ideas rather than shop or gossip. Go bushwalking, skydiving or walking within the crater of an active volcano.  Repeat until you are thoroughly bored, or have gained material which just demands to be written down.

Lucy Sussex is responsible for some twenty books, or irresponsible, take your pick.