I’ve had a hurry-scurry couple of weeks, packed with so many end-of-school-year activities that sometimes it feels like I’m only just keeping my head above water. Probably due to the overwhelming feeling of near drowning, it’s no surprise that I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately.
What I have been doing is reading compulsively and binge-watching Heroes, a show that somehow I never got around to seeing when it came out and which has been a lesson in working with multiple point of view.
This is something I need to do every now and then; take a break and dive into other people’s worlds. For me, this ‘downtime’, besides being a sanity saver, also lets me take a highly necessary step back from my own writing. It gives me time to quietly sift through my plotlines and characters while enjoying other people’s work, and I always find I come back stronger and hungrier after one of these breaks.
I don’t consider these occasional periods of downtime to be any sort of guilty pleasure. I consider them to be crucial moments of peace, of gathering energy and momentum. Without them, I would shatter. These moments keep me ticking.
I’m absolutely unapologetically taking time to smell the roses. Because sometimes we all need a time out. And I’m taking mine, right here, right now.
Catch you on the flip side!
Juliana Spink Mills 