What should you do when you’ve been stuck on your writing for days? Utsudo loves her work and always packs her schedule, until she reached a point where sitting at the computer made her anxious and even entertainment lost its appeal—forcing herself with coffee didn’t help. Eventually she dropped her work and went out for a walk, and a scene she’d been stuck on for days came together in no time. Her conclusion: a brain that never gets a break backfires, and writer’s block may be a signal that you need time off.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

I love working and am always busy

I love working. Work makes me feel alive.

Because I love it—and it’s work I enjoy—whenever I have a new idea, I can’t wait to squeeze it into my schedule. For me there’s no clocking in or out; I just rest whenever I’m tired.

Every time I finish a task, I eagerly shift my leftover energy onto something else.

So I’m always busy and always have endless things to do.

But I enjoy it and I’m very happy with this life XD

Suddenly I didn’t want to do anything

But after a while, I suddenly felt exhausted. I didn’t want to do anything; just sitting at the computer made me anxious, and I even felt like avoiding stillness.

That deep-seated aversion made me realize something was wrong.

But I love starting long projects and felt that the piles of work couldn’t stop, so I forced myself to sit at the computer and stay at my post as much as possible. It turned out to be very inefficient, and I could end up browsing the web all day without doing any work.

It kept getting worse. At its worst, even watching shows, reading comics or listening to music lost their appeal. Every cell in my body felt restless and nothing sank in. Even at the computer, I couldn’t squeeze anything out. My writer’s block was severe, and I was just staring blankly and wasting time.

And I’m the kind of person who feels I’m slacking if I haven’t produced anything.

So I’d force myself to drink coffee and fight it, thinking it would help me focus, but it didn’t improve much. It was just wasted effort.

Staying in that state made my self-loathing shoot up. I was also afraid my talent had run dry and I couldn’t produce anything, which made my whole day gloomy.

The cure for writer’s block: go out for a walk

After this went on for a while, I saw a YouTube video saying that if the brain is in work mode for a long time with no downtime, it backfires. Sometimes the more tired you feel, the harder you need to play (relax).

Half expecting to be fooled, I just dropped my work and went out for a stroll. Then something magical happened: the scene I’d been stuck on for days came together in no time. After relaxing and coming back, my efficiency shot up, and I was very happy with what I produced.

So the mystery of the century was finally solved: my schedule was too full, I wasn’t really resting, and every cell in my body was on strike!

Rest when you need to stay at your best

I thought work was good and rest was a waste of time, but it seems too much of anything backfires. Whatever you do, you need some flexibility, and restarting the switch when needed helps. Sometimes what looks like a detour may turn out to be an unexpected shortcut.

From this experience, I want to tell all of you: if you find yourself struggling at work, maybe it’s a reminder that you need to give yourself a break.

Stay at your best so you can keep charging ahead!

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Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #170: Taking Things for Granted Is a Kind of Illness
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.