From Edie: Dr. Katherine Hutchinson-Hayes helps writers the joy of writing when deadlines, publishing, and pressure steal the fun. Learn how to reconnect with creativity and enjoy writing again.
When Writing Stops Being Fun: How to Rediscover the Joy of Writing
by Dr. Katherine Hutchinson-Hayes @KHutch0767
Not long ago, I sat down at my piano for the first time in what felt like forever. There was no special occasion on the calendar, no audience waiting, and no piece of music I had promised to perform. I wasn’t preparing for anything at all. I just sat down, opened some music, placed my hands on the keys, and started playing. I was rusty, and there were moments when my fingers seemed to have forgotten things I was certain they once knew. But after a while, I realized I was enjoying myself in a way I hadn’t experienced at the piano in years.
Music was a major part of my childhood. I began taking piano lessons when I was five years old and played at Carnegie Hall throughout my childhood to qualify for musical awards. When I became a mother, I enrolled my children in piano lessons too. I tutored them, practiced with them, prepared for my own performances, and played music for other people’s important occasions. I loved the piano, but over time, playing also became connected to responsibility. There was always something to prepare for, someone depending on me, or a reason I needed to get the music right.
Eventually, that season of my life changed. My children grew older, my performances became less frequent, and without a particular reason to practice, I gradually stopped playing. Every so often, I would pass the piano and think about sitting down, but remembering how well I used to play made returning strangely intimidating. I knew I wouldn’t sound the way I once had, and perhaps it was easier to remember myself as a good pianist than to sit down and discover just how rusty I had become.
When I finally did return to the piano, something surprised me. The mistakes didn’t matter nearly as much as I thought they would. No one was listening. No one was grading me. I didn’t have to turn those minutes at the keyboard into a performance or accomplishment. I played because I wanted to play, and somewhere between missed notes and familiar melodies, I began thinking about writing.
I wonder how many of us can remember when writing felt that way.
Before we knew much about publishing, we wrote because something fascinated us. A character appeared in our imagination and refused to leave. A line of dialogue came to us while driving, showering, cooking dinner, or trying to sleep. We scribbled ideas on whatever was nearby because we were afraid we might forget them. We stayed awake later than we should have because we needed to find out what happened next. Nobody had to tell us to write. We were already doing it.
Then, somewhere along the way, many of us decided to become serious writers, and serious writing came with an entirely different vocabulary. We learned about word counts, deadlines, proposals, agents, editors, critique groups, conferences, contracts, newsletters, websites, social media, launch teams, preorders, reviews, sales figures, Amazon rankings, and algorithms. We discovered that finishing a book was often only the beginning of the work required to get it into readers’ hands.
None of those things is inherently bad. As both an author and a publisher, I understand the business side of books. I know deadlines matter. I believe strongly in good editing, learning the craft, understanding the marketplace, building relationships with readers, and treating writing professionally. I also know discipline will carry us through many days when inspiration has apparently packed a suitcase and left town without providing a forwarding address.
But I also know how easy it is to become so busy being a professional writer that we forget why we wanted to write in the first place.
At some point, we can begin evaluating an idea before we’ve even allowed ourselves to enjoy it. Is it marketable? Does it fit my brand? Will my agent like it? Is this what publishers are buying? Can I sell it? Will my readers follow me into another genre? Those are legitimate questions, but they don’t always need to be the first questions we ask. Sometimes an idea needs room to breathe before we demand that it explain how it intends to earn its keep.
I think writers need places where our words are allowed to play. Write a scene you know won’t appear in the finished manuscript. Let your villain tell you what really happened. Allow the quiet side character to take over the story for a few pages. Write the argument your characters have been too polite to have. Describe the house where you grew up without wondering whether the description can be turned into an essay, social media post, or scene in your next novel. Write something funny, strange, sentimental, or completely outside your usual genre. Better yet, don’t show it to anyone.
That kind of writing isn’t wasted time. Play can reveal things pressure often hides. When we aren’t trying to impress an editor, meet a deadline, satisfy a reader, or hit a particular word count, we may rediscover our natural voice. We remember the kinds of details that fascinate us, the risks we’re willing to take, and the stories we tell when nobody is standing over our shoulder. Sometimes those experimental pages will remain private, and sometimes we’ll discover they contain exactly what our manuscript has been missing.
Writers are often told that when we’re struggling, we need more discipline. Wake up earlier. Write another thousand words. Track your progress. Buy a new planner. Create a better schedule. There are certainly seasons when those strategies are useful, but there are also seasons when pushing harder isn’t the answer. Sometimes we’re exhausted. Sometimes rejection has affected us more deeply than we want to admit. Sometimes we’re grieving, caregiving, dealing with illness, working another job, or trying to hold a family together while still showing up for the page.
During those seasons, rest isn’t evidence that we’ve stopped being writers. Life isn’t an interruption of the creative process. Life is where much of our creative material comes from. A conversation that changes us, an afternoon spent with someone we love, a walk that clears our head, or a few days away from a manuscript can sometimes accomplish what another forced thousand words cannot.
Comparison can make this even harder because publishing gives us plenty of opportunities to believe everyone else is moving faster. We see another author’s book deal, award, conference photograph, speaking engagement, bestseller announcement, or impressive sales number. What we don’t see are the years that came before the announcement. We don’t know how many manuscripts were rejected, how many books didn’t sell as expected, how much support that author had, what sacrifices were required, or what may be happening privately while the public career looks wonderful.
Yet it’s incredibly easy to place our unfinished Chapter Seven beside someone else’s polished announcement and decide we’re behind.
A writing career doesn’t unfold on a universal schedule. Some writers publish young. Others find their audience decades later. Some careers take off quickly, while others grow quietly over many years. Genres change. Publishers close. Agents retire. Books that seem to disappear sometimes find readers long after their release. Writers experience seasons of extraordinary opportunity and seasons when nothing appears to be happening at all. Quiet doesn’t necessarily mean stagnant.
Maybe we also need to become better at counting things the publishing industry can’t measure. The industry can count copies sold, subscribers gained, reviews posted, royalties earned, and followers accumulated. It can’t measure the courage it took to return to a manuscript after rejection. It can’t measure the paragraph you rewrote six times until it finally said exactly what you meant. It can’t measure the reader who contacted you at precisely the right moment to say your words mattered. It certainly can’t measure what it costs to keep creating while walking through grief, illness, disappointment, caregiving, family difficulties, or exhaustion.
Those things count too.
Returning to the piano hasn’t magically made me the pianist I once was, and I’m discovering that I don’t need it to. What matters is that I returned. My hands remembered more than I expected, and what they didn’t remember, they can learn again. I believe there’s a lesson in that for those of us who have spent years building writing careers.
Maybe your manuscript has been sitting untouched for months. Maybe publishing has bruised you a little. Maybe you’re meeting every deadline and doing everything you’re supposed to do, yet the joy has quietly slipped out of the room. Maybe you’ve spent so much time marketing your writing, talking about writing, teaching writing, editing writing, posting about writing, and worrying about writing that you’ve had very little time left to enjoy writing.
If that’s where you are, give yourself permission to return to the page without asking it to accomplish anything for a while. Leave the sales dashboard closed. Ignore your platform for an hour. Don’t worry about whether the scene belongs in the finished book or whether anyone will ever read it. Follow an idea because it interests you. Keep the sentence that makes you laugh. Let a character surprise you. Write something that reminds you why putting words together once felt a little like magic.
The business of publishing will still be there when you finish. There will always be another deadline, another marketing task, another proposal, another post, another number to watch, and another goal worth pursuing. Those things are part of the writing life, and many of them are good things. But underneath all of that work, we need to protect the part of ourselves that still finds delight in creating something that didn’t exist before we sat down. That’s what the piano is teaching me now. Beginning again doesn’t require me to become the person I was years ago. I don’t have to play exactly as I once played, and I don’t have to prove anything about the musician I used to be. I can discover what music means to me in this season of my life.
We can do the same with writing. We aren’t always trying to get back to the writer we used to be. Sometimes we’re making room for the writer we’re becoming.
So pull out the chair. Open the manuscript. Put your hands on the keys and give yourself permission to enjoy what happens next.
TWEETABLE
AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association), and AASA (American Association of School Administrators). She serves on the nonprofit organization Submersion 14 board and the 540 Writer’s Community board and is an art instructor for the nonprofit organization Light for the Future. Katherine hosts the podcast Murder, Mystery & Mayhem Laced with Morality. She has authored a Christian Bible study for women and is currently working on the sequel to her first general market thriller novel. Her thriller A Fifth of the Story will debut in February 2024 through Endgame Press.
Katherine flourishes in developmental editing and coaching writers. She has a twenty-year career in education, leadership, and journalism. Katherine freelances as an educational consultant for charter schools, home school programs, and churches. In this role, she has written and edited curriculum, led program development, and helped manage growth facilitating and public relations. She also works as an editor and book coach through her consulting business. Katherine provides skill, accountability, and professionalism so clients can begin, develop, and finish their writing projects for publication.
"Sometimes an idea needs room to breathe before we demand that it explain how it intends to earn its keep." I love that. Keeping the joy in writing is so important. Thanks for the reminder and saying it so well.
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