I have come back from an eight-week trip from India. It was a great break from the routine, one I desperately needed. I got to the point where I was so engrossed in fulfilling my own expectations from me that I was not taking the time to evaluate what was working and what was not.

The reality for us creatives is that we are drawing from the creative well without taking time to fill it. We are continually sucking the marrow from the things that are happening around us without realizing how stressful the writing process could be. Long breaks can help let go of all that and just relax. When we are able to do that, we get a new perspective. Wonderful things can happen when we least expect them.

Joanna Pen, a writer and podcaster, talks about the serendipity of those moments when you are traveling and you’re in a museum and you see something and you realize this is something that can enrich my book or you come across something that suddenly gives you a new idea which you hadn’t found, had you not been for the travels.

Downtimes give us the opportunity to reset and recalibrate.

We need breaks regularly in the same way we need to sleep. That’s the reason academics take sabbaticals. To fill their creative wells.

The trip helped me look at things from a new perspective. Today’s issue is about sharing those.

A Whimsical Writer

Rejuvenation, re-evaluation and reframing

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