Schedule Time for Innovation, Development, Fun
If you are writing hard, always putting out words, you need some time to reboot.
I make something to
wake up creativity.
Then, I come alive.
-polly campbell
This weekend was all about development. New ideas. Plans. Goals.
I made mind maps and doodles, let things spiral off the page in a mess of lines and colors. Wrote in my journal. By hand. A draft so energetic, the words today are hardly legible.
In a company maybe they call this innovation and development. They have teams for this. People who do only this. I do everything in my office. And clean the bathroom. I bet you do too.
Refilling
So often I’m writing to hit deadlines, finish jobs, putting stuff out there. All of that thinking can leave me feeling drained. If all we do is produce, eventually we will become exhausted and empty.
Our job is to write and ship the words. But we have to have something to ship.
Before we hit that emptiness, before we teeter on burnout, we need time to play with ideas and what-if projects, to daydream, and to develop. The freedom to create, without the pressure of publishing. To innovate how we work, what we write, how we learn.
To reconnect with the reasons we became a writer and to get excited again about all of what that means and why it matters.
The Payoff
I always feel so excited and motivated after I spend a development day. Time thinking about new ideas, and reflecting on the things I’ve completed and those I want to start.
Saturday, I mind-mapped a few things out. Updated my goals. Outlined new ideas freehand in my journal. Watched some Tik Tok. Inked a fountain pen. Dreamed about an outlandish project I may not be able to let go of. Listed out some action items. Had a drink with my husband, talked over budgets and dreams. Wrote stuff no one will see.
Mostly I let my mind unwind and squiggle around things and curiosities instead of shaping all that energy into sentences on the page.
A Few Times a Year
I take days like this periodically throughout the year. As needed. When I’m feeling edgy or frantic and tired, or when I’m following a big idea and I haven’t worked it out yet.
I take one day at the beginning of the year. One after school starts in September. And then schedule others as needed. Somedays they happen during the workweek. Or Saturday. Like I said, as needed.
Name Your Day
I call it Innovation and Development Day.
If I come up with something that sounds more fun, I’ll change the name. But, the key is that I take the day, which is all about creative expansion, very seriously. I make an agenda so I have a loose idea of the things I want to read or ponder or explore. I leave plenty of unplanned time.
It’s a mental health day, really. A business development day too.
A writer has nothing if we don’t regularly get material out. But we don’t have material if we don’t slow our roll and dream about what might come next.
Leave time for this kind of play and development. Shape a day that allows ideas to emerge. Turn them over in your mind. Have fun, because this is the kind of thing that will determine where you put your writing energy next.
-p
You guys, this book came out of a development day when I was so stagnant and sad and overwhelmed and needed a day to turn it around. Right now it is on SALE. I’d be so grateful if you bought one today. Thank you.
