Survivors of domestic violence and other forms of abuse must be careful with how often they subject themselves to traumatic content. Sometimes we can sit down and write about abuse without much issue. Other times, working on one poem/piece of writing can be enough to cause a mental and emotional spiral.

As my debut book of poetry is about to be released (ONLY THREE DAYS LEFT), I find myself looking forward to what I want my next book of poetry to be about, and naturally my emotionally abusive marriage is what comes to mind. I’ve written many poems about my ex-husband (probably a good hundred or more), and while it’s nice, as a writer, to have a lot of poems already drafted that I can work with, it takes a lot of emotional energy to revise them. I left him in 2019, and even in the three years it’s been, the trauma still feels urgent and close. Revising these poems is going to be a massive undertaking.

And with my book coming out this week, there’s a definite sense of moving forward and dedicating myself to my next poetry project as quickly as possible. But I’m seeing now that might not be possible, and even if it is, it might not be the best approach. It took a good two and a half years of writing to complete my debut book of poetry, and that came years after my second miscarriage.

I think, as writers, we’re often pressuring ourselves to “get the writing done,” and while it is good to have a writing schedule, it’s also healthy to take the time we need to look after our mental and emotional health. Not only will this make the writing process that much more sustainable, but it will lead to even better writing. When wounds are still fresh, they can give us some really raw and honest content, but revising that content can be particularly difficult. Allowing space, allowing for moments where we’re not writing anything, are important.

One of the things I’ve been working on is balancing my time. Releasing a book means promoting it, attending the book launch and other events, planning public readings, submitting more work to be published, looking for awards to apply to, etc. It takes a lot of time. I’m also in the first week of fall semester, I have a lot of books to read, and I have a condo to keep clean. It’s simply unrealistic to think I can get it all done every single day.

Balancing my time has to include giving myself days off, days when I don’t write. And these days off can be a few times a week, a whole week at a time, or even months. Like, since probably June/July, after I completed the third draft of what will be my debut novel, I got some wonderful feedback, but it meant even more heavy revision and expansion, and I wasn’t ready for that. So I took all of August off and, instead of writing in my novel, I rewatched all of Game of Thrones in preparation for The House of the Dragon. And even though I have some major issues with Game of Thrones, it was really fun to rewatch the series. It also reminded me of the things I don’t want to do/have in my series: misogyny, racism, a white savior, “mad” women, plot points that are built up to be incredibly important that then fall completely flat, unraveling all character development for the sake of a plot point, emotional trauma porn, etc.

So, this is just a reminder: you can’t actually get writing done if you’re neglecting your own wellbeing to do it. Your work will still be there once you’ve rested.