Why Every Writer Needs a Creative Hobby (And How It Protects Your Writing Life)

From Edie: Discover why creative hobbies outside of writing help prevent burnout, spark fresh ideas, and sustain long-term creativity. Learn how play, rest, and non-writing pursuits can strengthen your writing life and keep your imagination thriving.

Why Every Writer Needs a Creative Hobby (And How It Protects Your Writing Life)

by Lynn H. Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn

Y’all…I’m in my sourdough era.

I know. I know. 

I do not have time to babysit a starter or schedule my life around dough. I don’t. 

But … I do love fresh bread. 

And … I have this little quirk that means I really love learning new things. 

And … did I mention fresh bread? 

And really, having a hobby that involves entire days where you do nothing but wait for the dough to ferment? I mean, come on. That’s a rather perfect hobby for an author. Right? 

Okay, hear me out. Not everyone wants to bake. I get that. 

But I’m convinced that every writer needs a hobby that is not writing and is not about words. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love to read. I’m almost never not reading. But when my brain needs a break from words, reading isn’t always the answer. *gasp*

But baking bread? Crocheting? Knitting? Entertaining? Crafting? Photography? Exercise? Hiking? Painting? Music? Sports? 

Minimal words. Major payoff.

I’m more and more convinced that for most writers, finding hobbies that take us out of the world of words and into an arena where we may or may not excel but where we get to play is a crucial part of the creative process. 

It may not feel like it. Or look like it. 

You may get pushback. 

Readers may wonder why you don’t write more than you do, especially if your social media includes your forays into other avenues of expression. But what they don’t understand, and what many writers don’t understand about themselves, is that creating in other mediums is a critical way to recharge the parts of yourself that get depleted during the writing process. 

Which brings us back to sourdough. 

Really. 

Sourdough starter is alive. It’s this little bit of activity that gets added to every new batch of dough and gives it what it needs to rise. 

This means that if you want to bake sourdough, you have to take care of your starter. You have to feed it! And water it! And keep it warm!

If you take care of your starter, guess what? You get better bread! 

But wait—there’s more! 

You don’t ever use all of the starter. Oh no. You might use most of it and knead it into your dough, but if you ever want to bake another loaf (which, of course, you do!), you always save a few grams of starter. You baby those few grams with good food, water, and warmth, and here’s the important part … you give that starter the time and environment it needs to grow strong and bubbly (literally) before you repeat the baking process. 

At this point, I know the temptation is to see this as a metaphor for writing a book, and while that works, it isn’t what I’m talking about at all. 

This is a metaphor for your daily writing habits. Some of us (raises hand!) have a bad habit of going full out until we’re empty. We write for hours. We write all the words we have and some we didn’t know we had, and then we wonder why we can’t go again the next day! 

I’ll tell you why. 

It’s because we didn’t leave ourselves with any starter to fuel our work on the next day. We didn’t take care of ourselves and put our brains into an environment where they can grow strong and bubbly before we put them to work again. And our words suffer for it. 

I think we can all follow that, just like a sourdough starter, our brains need good food and water, but warmth? What’s that about? That’s where those non-word hobbies come in. 

The time you spend in front of an easel, with a camera in hand, with hiking boots on your feet, with yarn pooled on the floor around you, or, yes, with hands covered in flour, is like wrapping your brain in a cozy blanket and saying, “There, there. You worked hard. Let’s play for a while and then take a nap.” 

You know what’s wild? The sourdough starter I have was given to me by a friend who got hers from a friend who got hers from a friend…I don’t know how old it is, but it’s several years old. And it’s still making fabulous bread. All because it’s been taken care of and given what it needs to thrive.

I want to be writing ten, maybe even twenty years from now. And as weird as it may sound, I’m pretty sure sourdough, crochet, and hiking in the mountains will help me get there! 

I’d love to know: do you give yourself permission to enjoy your non-writing hobbies? Have you found that “indulging” in these hobbies helps you stay creative for the long haul? 

Grace and peace,

Lynn

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Why Every Writer Needs a Creative Hobby (And How It Protects Your Writing Life) from @LynnHBlackburn on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Lynn H. Blackburn is the award-winning author of Unknown Threat, Malicious Intent, and Under Fire, as well as the Dive Team Investigations series. She loves writing swoon-worthy southern suspense because her childhood fantasy was to become a spy, but her grown-up reality is that she's a huge chicken and would have been caught on her first mission. She prefers to live vicariously through her characters by putting them into terrifying situations while she's sitting at home in her pajamas! She lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, with her true love, Brian, and their three children. Learn more at www.lynnhblackburn.com.