Natalie Ann Holborow

There’s a moment in every writer’s life where one minute, you’re up at 2am, typing up your words, when suddenly they stop. You close the laptop and you’re exhausted. Not just a little bit physically exhausted, but utterly, emotionally, creatively drained.

Creative burnout isn’t just about being ‘a little bit stuck’. It’s not writer’s block, which is irritating but entirely fixable, provided you’ve got the patience, a page full of prompts and enough books to remind you why you love the written word. Burnout is deeper, more insidious. It’s like waking up one morning and realising all your ideas have packed up and left in the night without a forwarding address. It’s a sort of creative amnesia, where you forget how to do the thing you love, and worse, you forget why you ever loved it in the first place. 

It is not a sign that you were never meant to write, that your poems have left you for good. It’s a season. And like any season, it will shift, slowly at first; so slowly you won’t even notice. But then, suddenly, one day, the words will come back.

Until then, here’s what burnout is trying to tell you and how to make space for the words to return.

What is creative burnout trying to tell you?

Being burned out means feeling empty and mentally exhausted, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring (NHS). This is particularly true for those whose livelihoods depend on their work in the creative sector; where ‘taking a break’ from being creative simply isn’t an option. The creative sector has seen massive growth in the past few years, but unfortunately, it, too, is reporting increasing burnout rates known as “creative burnout,” showing up in certain fields. It’s harder to detect creative burnout because it’s masked by creative endeavors due to the nature of the profession.

Burnout doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens because something is out of balance. Maybe you’ve been pushing too hard, treating poetry like a factory line instead of an art form. Maybe you’ve fallen into the trap of writing for approval – submitting, competing, constantly chasing external validation  –  until your writing no longer feels like yours. Maybe your life outside of writing has been heavy, exhausting, full of things that demand more from you than you have to give.

Burnout is a message. And if you can bear to sit with it, to stop trying to outrun it, it will tell you exactly what you need to know.

Are you exhausted? Overwhelmed? Have you been carrying too much for too long?

Have you turned your creative writing into work at the expense of play?

Are you comparing yourself to other writers so much that you’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like?

Are you consuming more than you create? Scrolling, watching, absorbing, until your own thoughts are drowned out?

Or maybe, just maybe, are you not burned out at all? Are you just changing? Has the way you write, the way you think, evolved in ways you haven’t quite caught up with yet? Are you trying to force yourself to be the writer you used to be, instead of making space for the writer you are becoming?

Burnout is not just an obstacle. It’s a mirror. And if you look closely, it will show you exactly where you need to shift.

What are the symptoms of creative burnout?

Burnout doesn’t always announce itself dramatically (no matter how dramatically you like to write). Sometimes, it creeps in quietly, until one day, you realise you haven’t written anything you like in months. Until one day, you pick up your pen and feel nothing.

Do any of the following signs sound familiar to you?

Writing feels like a chore rather than pleasure

The excitement is gone. The joy you once felt in losing hours perfecting your metaphors or building worlds or developing characters just feels like hard work. You start procrastinating. Even the laundry seems more enthralling than writing the next scene or stanza. If you find yourself suddenly pairing your socks during your free time or Googling how to start a candle-making business when you should be writing, there’s a good chance that you’re seeing your writing as a chore you’re trying to avoid, rather than the passion it once was.

You hate everything you write

Every poem feels stale, repetitive, like a weaker version of something you’ve already done. Even when you do finish something, it never feels good enough. Your trash folder is filling fast or you find yourself getting more angry than inspired when you’re scribbling lines through what you’ve just written in your notebook (even when you’ve picked the best possible cafe for people-watching).

You can’t focus on writing

You sit down to write, but your mind is scattered. Your phone is suddenly magnetic. You start a poem, but after two lines, you’re checking emails, rearranging bookshelves, watching videos of piglets in tiny hats (if you do need recommendations for videos of piglets in hats, by the way, I can provide plenty).

You feel jealous rather than happy for other writers

Instead of being inspired by great poetry, you feel resentful, convinced that everyone else still has their creative spark while yours has abandoned you. Yes, even if they’re your own mates. This doesn’t mean you’re evil, by the way; just a burned-out human who has put in far more than they feel they’re getting back.

You’re tired

Not just creatively tired, but tired tired. You don’t have the energy to create. Maybe your life outside of writing is overwhelming. Maybe you haven’t been resting enough, or feeding your body and mind the things they need. Maybe you’re just stretched too thin.

To make things more complicated, maybe your burnout isn’t all to do with your writing at all. What’s going on in the rest of your life? Has there been a big change? Is work stressful? What about your health or your family life?

Keeping a journal can help you get to the root of what the problem is. There’s always a deeper issue, and it’s not always to do with the writing.

Step 1: Feed your senses

Writing does not come from just writing words on paper. It comes from the body, from the way the world enters you. It comes from the way cold water chills your bare feet, from the heavy scent of oranges peeled at the kitchen table, from the quiet click of a dog’s nails on a hardwood floor.

If the words won’t come, don’t try to summon them. Instead, live in a way that makes them want to return. It sounds silly, but taking time to engage all your senses in a way that’s almost meditative can keep you present. It can help you really notice things, which is something that’s key to unlocking your best writing:

• Listen to a song in a language you don’t understand and let the sound be enough.
• Eat something you’ve never eaten before. Something you can’t name, something with a texture that surprises you.
• Go to a museum and stand in front of the smallest, least famous artwork. Give it your full attention. Imagine the hands that made it.
• Make a list of words you love, just for the sound of them. Thistle. Lilt. Reverie. Foxglove. Panglossian.
• Walk without a destination. Let your feet decide where to go, and notice what you pass: graffiti, a crumpled receipt on the pavement, the way the light shifts to the colour of apricots.

Fill yourself up with sensation, and let the writing gather inside you, unhurried.

Step 2: Let go of the idea of ‘good’

Maybe the burnout isn’t just exhaustion. Maybe it’s perfectionism dressed as exhaustion. Maybe the pressure is suffocating your creative self so that it can no longer speak a word.

If that’s the case, it’s time to lower the bar.

Don’t try to write something good. Just try to write something. One sentence. One fragment. One unpolished, clumsy line.

Write about the way the toast burned this morning; the colour, the smell, the mess. Write about the woman on the bus who was whispering into her phone urgently; think about the words you thought you caught. Write a terrible poem on purpose, one that rhymes in all the wrong places and ends abruptly in the middle of a thought.

The words are not asking you to be brilliant. They are only asking you to show up. Throw it out if you need to.

Step 3: Consume words without the pressure to produce them

If the last step was hard, and you’re still feeling frustrated, let’s abandon the idea of writing anything at all. For example, when I’m burned out, reading poetry can feel like rubbing salt in a wound. I might treat myself to a prizewinning collection only to get halfway through and feel utterly hopeless. It’s not the energy I need in that moment, so I start reading things that have nothing to do with poetry at all.

Here are some options:

• A book of bizarre facts, so you can learn something useless and delightful, like the fact that there’s a jellyfish that can live forever by renewing itself. (That’s a free poem idea for you, by the way.)
  
• A graphic novel, because sometimes your brain just needs pictures.
  
• The reviews section of Amazon (I once read a review of sugar-free gummy bears that changed me as a person.)
  
• Your own old writing, preferably from a long enough time ago that it feels like someone else wrote it.
  

Words should be fun again, not a source of stress. Remember that before writing was work, before you cared about structure or form or making something good, you just liked playing with language. And that’s what we’re trying to get back to.

Remember, you’re not alone with creative burnout

Burnout is one of those things that makes you feel like you’re failing while everyone else is effortlessly producing masterpiece after masterpiece. This is a lie. Every writer you have ever admired has probably, at some point, felt exactly like you do now. They just don’t talk about it because it’s weirdly shameful to admit that sometimes you can end up hating your own craft.

Talk to other writers. Join a workshop, even if only to remind yourself that writing is supposed to be a shared experience, not just you vs. the blank page. Complain about your burnout to a friend who also writes, and I guarantee you they will immediately launch into a monologue about their own creative crises. Misery loves company, but more importantly, so does creativity.

Here is the truth: you will write again. It might not happen tomorrow. It might not happen in the way you expect. But creativity is not something you can permanently lose. It is a tide. A cycle. A muscle that needs rest as much as exercise.

When it returns, it will feel easy again. You will sit down, pick up a pen, and something will pour out that surprises you. And in that moment, you’ll realise that the burnout, though horrible, was also necessary. Because sometimes, the only way to make space for new words is to let yourself go quiet for a while.