In which a bunch of authors & editors are invited to answer the question: How do you deal with creative exhaustion?
Karen Miller is one of those inspiring examples of success that makes you really, truly *want* to be a writer. Energetic, open & down-to-earth, Karen’s answer displays her trademark generosity.
I stop thinking about my own work, and plunge myself with abandon into other people’s stories. Because I am a writer, and truck with words, I find that for me it means immersing myself in the visually dramatic — theatre, film and tv drama. If the urge to read does strike, I read books in genres other than my own, so that I’m taking in words that form different patterns of the imagination. It also helps to get outside into the fresh air, escape the confines of four walls and a computer screen. If I can, I squish in some travel, take in an art gallery, go to a classical music concert. Anything that nurtures the senses, that gives something to me and fills me with excellence and beauty.
– Having written 17 novels since 2005, Karen Miller is far more intimately acquainted with creative exhaustion than she cares to be, and is now enjoying a period of wallowing in other people’s stories.