Some weeks, writing feels like trying to light a match in a windstorm. Even if you get a spark, it’s extinguished before you can feel its warmth or transfer it to the waiting kindling. It can feel like an exercise in futility. Why even bother?
But what happens, then?
You stay stuck in the cold and dark.
As someone who has strived to be a professional writer for nearly two decades and who has battled depression during some of that time, I’ve been there. I know what writer burnout feels like.
I will say this… if you need the grace of putting aside writing for a spell, that is perfectly fine. You have permission. You have that right. It’s okay to take a hiatus.
But if you want to do something but all the messaging you’re receiving is based on hustle culture and buckling down, the perfectionist pressure… that is overwhelming.
It feels like you’re doomed to fail before you’ve even begun.
I hate that feeling.
The past couple of weeks have been a stressful season in my day job. I’ve felt it overflow into my home life and my creative life. In addition, my trusty laptop is showing signs of dementia (losing files) and exhaustion (battery issues). I’ve lost some sizable chunks of writing, and it has been frustrating. My worry over producing and then losing what I’ve created has diminished my desire to create. Or overshadowed my creation sessions with a negative aura.
So, I don’t want to talk about big ideas this week.
Let’s look at tiny practices.
Tiny steps forward that don’t demand brilliance, only presence. These are the practices that help me stay connected to my stories even when my capacity is low. I’ve talked about Slow Productivity in a previous blog post here. When life gets overwhelming, these 6 tiny tools help me keep moving forward at a slower pace:
1. One‑Sentence Essence
When I can’t write a whole scene, or character outline, I let myself go through my collection of quotes, creative writing prompts, and visual inspiration I keep on Pinterest. I used to have a physical collection but I love the handiness of the digital format. I have images of scenery, people, costumes, sketches, bits of poetry and prose that are emotionally evoking. I scroll through those and pull together the scraps that coalesce around a character or a location or a moment.
Then, if I’ve the creative juice, I jot down the words that give that essence shape on paper.
Here’s one for a secondary character, named Quintarion:
Seventeen losses out of twenty-two matches – I might’ve been a punching bag, but at least I know I’m not a quitter.
Interesting how much clarity a few words strung together can give. And now, you have a breadcrumb trail for future‑you. You’re keeping your story warm without doing all the work right now.
2. Micro‑Outlining
Instead of a full outline, I jot down three tiny beats:
- What the character wants
- What gets in the way
- What changes by the end
That’s it. Three lines. Enough to keep the story moving without requiring a full architecture. Micro‑outlining is especially helpful when I only have a few minutes of my lunch break or while I’m waiting for the rice to finish cooking for dinner. It gives me direction without pressure.
3. Sensory Fragments
When I’m too tired to write prose, I write sensations.
- The feel of electrically-charged air on her palms as she’s using ASL
- The flicker of fluorescent lights in an overcrowded room
- The scent of crushed grass underfoot while hiking
- The warmth of a dog leaning against her leg
Later, I weave these fragments into scenes. For now, they’re tiny anchors — reminders that the world of the story still exists, even if I can only touch it in small pieces.
4. Anchor Questions
When I’m overwhelmed, I ask myself one simple question:
What does my character want right now?
If I can answer that, I can write a sentence. If I can write a sentence, I can write a paragraph. And if I can write a paragraph, I’ve kept the story alive.
Other anchor questions that help:
- What hurts?
- What comforts them?
- What choice are they avoiding?
- What truth is trying to surface?
These questions pull me back into the emotional engine of the story.
5. Permission to Write Badly
This is the gentlest tool of all.
When I’m overwhelmed, I give myself permission to write the worst version of the scene. The messy version. The version that rambles and contradicts itself and uses placeholder dialogue like:
[Insert emotional moment here.]
Bad writing is still writing. It’s still progress. It’s still connection. And often, the act of letting myself be imperfect is what unlocks the next good sentence.
6. Leveraging “10‑Minute Magic”
This is something a couple of my writer friends heard years ago and started using. It really is magic. Set a timer for ten minutes and write whatever you can. Not to be productive — just to return. (Though if you end up in “the flow” when the timer goes off and want to keep writing, that’s a bonus.)
Ten minutes is small enough to feel doable, even on the hardest days. If you are trying to figure out how to overcome writer’s block without the pressure of a massive word count, this is the gentlest way to start. And returning to the page, even briefly, reminds me that writing is a relationship. It doesn’t vanish when I’m overwhelmed. It waits.
Connecting to your Creativity
In my Hope as a Writing Practice post, I talked about hope as a discipline. These tiny tools are part of that discipline — small ways I stay connected to my stories even when I feel like I’m trying to create hope in the middle of a thunderstorm.
If you’re overwhelmed right now, you’re not failing as a writer. You’re living as a human. These tiny tools aren’t about pushing through exhaustion — they’re about honoring your capacity and keeping a soft thread tied between you and your stories.
Your creativity doesn’t disappear when life gets loud. It waits quietly in the spaces between the noise, a small, stubborn ember ready to catch the moment you breathe on it again.
Now, let’s add a new song to our playlist.
Light of a Clear Blue Morning
Do you know this song? It’s a Dolly Parton classic from a few decades ago. (Who doesn’t love a little Dolly?) But I also love the softer version in the tight harmonies of The Wailin’ Jenny’s. I hope it lifts your spirits as it does mine.