Why I'm Taking A Break From Writing

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It's simple, really. It was much too stressful.

I'm keeping this simple. I had taken, for some time now, a very unhelpful approach to my writing. I wasn't really enjoying it that much. I felt obliged to meet non-existent deadlines to maintain the interest of people I had projected my own impatience onto. I felt the need to be involved with every admin discussion in Pokeumans, to be reading as many things as possible, to re-create what I still feel were my glory days of having read the entire Pokeumans gallery and every new member having known my face. And I can't do that. It's changed. I'm at uni now, that makes me busy. But even just writing chapters got this - I felt the need to work on them as fast as possible even when people told me there was no rush, because if I didn't I feared people would lose all interest. I wasn't writing when I wanted to, I was writing as much as I could. And while my series themselves were what I wanted to be writing, the way I was writing them in terms of sitting down and typing was unhealthy. And, it has to be said, I was investing a lot of mental and actual effort on relationships with people that I barely knew on here. The idea was to build up that relationship with them and try and make more online friends, which I don't regret, but even so it was disproportionate in some cases. And, well, I have friends in real life too. I love you guys dearly and sincerely call many of you my friends, but I also want to get close to people who live in the same city as me as well.

Now I've got a lot better at these. This is me having actually made a lot of improvements over the last few months, and maybe dredging a little. But it still stands. So I'm taking a break from writing. If it's that stressful, I'm going to turn it off, go away a bit and then turn it on again in a more default setting (good analogy for it). I will still see posts. I will still leave comments. I will still talk to people. I am not quitting DA in any sense. And mark my words, I will start writing again at some point. It's my favourite hobby. But I need to straighten out my approach to it first, so I'm leaving it be for now. Once I've worked out how to read posts and write for fun, rather than for pressure, and as a hobby rather than something that I feel needs I will be back. But if nothing else, I have exams coming up for the next two weeks.

This also means I am taking a break from the Pokeumans Admin Area, until I figure out how to approach that well too. Again, I will be back.
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Comments9
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yellowfire7's avatar
It is a heavy weight, to feel everything you want to or have to do piling up.  I have only been able to deal with it by casting some things off, and finding a way to make others lighter or easier to complete.  If that is what you have to do, well, you know we will all be fine with it.

Sounds like most everyone who commented has had the same feelings now or in the past.