Freelance Writer and Social Worker

A Freelance Writer's Guide to Dealing with Burnout

My pen flew across the room, narrowly missing my 14-year-old cat who had chosen that moment to stick his head out from behind the sofa following a long nap. I cursed. I was sick and tired of writing self-help articles. I'd been writing several such articles every day for two or three weeks. The tone of my writing was beginning to change from sympathetic to sarcastic, and I found myself having to self-edit more and more severely.

I was seriously burned out, but what to do about it? I needed the money. Since I had to keep writing, and I couldn't keep beaning my cats with pens, I had to find a way to deal with my burnout. Fast. Here are some ideas that worked for me.

Work on Something Different

Sure, it was a bit of a pinch, but I reduced the number of self-help articles I was writing and started working on some projects I wanted to publish on Kindle. I also took on some editing projects. Branching out didn't solve the problems entirely, but the variety did help take the tedium out of writing the self-help articles.

A Shocking Development: How ECT Gave Me Back My Writing

"There is not much else I can do for you chemically," my psychiatrist told me directly.

"And that means?" I asked, trying to care.

"I'm recommending ECT."

ECT. Electro-convulsive therapy, once known as electro-shock. I knew what that was all about, or at least I thought I did. I'd seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

But I also understood that it was time for something drastic. My moods have always been on a roller coaster to hell thanks to my bipolar disorder. In December of last year, a cruel depression had swept in, obliterating everything that was good in my life. Motivation became a thing of the past. Next my concentration failed me and I began making stupid, rookie mistakes. As one medication after another failed to restore me to even a semblance of normalcy, my thoughts turned to suicide. And fixated there.

Yes, it was time for something drastic, but I still trembled as I approached the hospital for my first session of ECT. (The initial phase of ECT usually consists of three outpatient treatments a week for four weeks.) I had visions of being dragged into an empty room and restrained in a straitjacket.

Do You Have Writer's Burnout?

I'll never forget that Friday years ago when I hauled myself out of bed after only a few hours of sleep and stumbled to my computer for another full day of work. 

I sat there and stared at the monitor until my vision became blurry. My hands remained clenched in my lap. I simply could not bring myself to power the computer up for the day.

I didn't have writer's block. I had writer's burnout.

What Is Burnout?

According to Dictionary.com, burnout is "fatigue, frustration, or apathy resulting from prolonged stress, overwork, or intense activity."

The phrase was first used in the 1970s to describe the malaise of some people in the helping professions. Since then, mental health professionals have realized that people in just about any field are subject to burnout.