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Blog Briefs: On Burnout, with Rosaleen Love

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

I wanted to call Rosaleen ‘one of the originators of the weird’, but even that seemed too constrictive a description. Here Rosaleen gives EXACTLY the kind of advice I’ve been needing.

I think ‘slow writing’ is the answer when the feeling of burn out threatens, something akin to the ‘slow food’ movement. Anxiety and panic are counterproductive to the creative process. What I enjoy in writing is the puzzle solving aspect – first, brooding about a puzzle I set myself, then trying to work it out in a way that might interest readers. The secret is, not to worry about doing this fast. If only a block of text gets written each day, who else in the universe cares? As long as one block gets placed near the next. And it can be done at 5am.

Rosaleen Love