A post shared by annabelle (@annabelleblythe) on Feb 14, 2017 at 7:18pm PST

The past few weeks have been intense and I haven’t written a damn thing—until today.

I went from writing every day to not writing at all, seemingly overnight, and for a few days it was a shock. When we create for a living, we often feel this pressure to constantly be dancing and playing with creativity and inspiration.

News flash:

Inspiration isn’t barreling down the road to the exact spot you’re standing in. You cannot wait for inspiration to create.

When we feel uninspired to the level that we can’t even sit down and write “I have nothing to say,” or when we think we are suffering from writer’s block and will never write again, the truth may be a lot less dramatic.

Maybe we’re just tired.

Yes, it can be that simple.

I’ve been feeling exhausted from moving, and emotionally drained from navigating new romantic and platonic relationships. My body felt disoriented from the time zone change and I came down with a 48-turned-24-hour bug. No wonder I didn’t have any juice left to go to the creative side of my brain.

So I stopped worrying about writing and decided to rest, letting the words come when they needed to.

People often ask me how I work through writer’s block or how I stay inspired. Here’s the truth—I don’t.

If I have nothing to say, I know I am burnt out, exhausted or stressed, so I need to step away from the work and evaluate where in my life I am overreaching or going too fast. I take five steps back and let myself exhale and release the need to always be going, creating, “on.”

We cannot work creatively if we have no energy to take care of ourselves. Personally, my mental and emotional body—which house my creativity—are the first to break down in times of stress; my physical body is second, but is often the biggest warning sign.

A three-day fever was a nice wake-up call to sit and settle for a while.

When we are feeling uninspired, we need to be gentle with ourselves. The art has not left us. Inspiration may not be coming anytime soon, but when it does, we want to be ready to catch it.

If we are exhausted, we must rest. And if we’re just waiting for the big idea, we should make some bad work for a while and see what comes out of that.

Your art is you and that cannot be lost.

Author: Annabelle Blythe

Image: Courtesy of author

Editor: Nicole Cameron