🧯 How to keep pace without burnout
Banish the burnout during WorldEmber this year and use the marathon mindset to achieve your goals!
Continuing in my (not sponsored) preparations for WorldEmber, this post is all about how to keep pace during the 10k writing marathon in December without burning out.
Not sure what this is about? Check the first post here:
TJ Trewin
🤔 What is burnout?
It's where you've done so much that you're exhausted and, even if you want to, you're unable to enjoy being creative in the moment (especially to your usual standards).
Whilst burnout is temporary, it can last months or even years.
If it's the latter, check in with a mental health professional to see if there are underlying things impacting on your recovery.
Instead of starting this post with the usual exciting and uplifting tone, I'd like to share with you a bit about my experience with burnout:
I don't know about you but I've experienced a lot of frequent burnout after taking part in multi-prompt challenges and writing marathon events with my worldbuilding.
I'm often all-hype and raring to go on day one, but by day 15 (or even day 10) I am struggling and the creativity and motivation dwindles and fizzles out. Once the event is over, the creative block immediately locks in - and the motivation to keep up the writing habit or polish my articles is GONE.
Thankfully over the past seven years of taking part in these competitions, I've learnt and developed some neat tricks and preventative measures that I want to share with you.
(Disclaimer: it's not going to banish it forever, but it will help a lot!)
🏃 The marathon mindset
If WorldEmber is a writing marathon, then you need to think like a worldbuilding athlete!
What condition do you think they'd be in after that?
Preventing creative burnout all comes down to preparing, having a positive mindset focussed on your goal, going at the pace that works best for you, and having a good recovery so you can keep your momentum for the next creative burst!
Ready? Let's get into it!
⏲️ Worldbuilding warm-ups
The first step to preventing burnout during WorldEmber is to warm up before the challenge - think of your creativity as like a muscle that needs waking up and stretching!
Here are three worldbuilding warm-ups you can try out this year:
- ⭐ Take part in smaller challenges leading up to the event.
Not only are they a great little practise run, you'll have lots of worldbuilding ideas to expand from when December comes around. - 📝 Revisit your old worldbuilding and polish up some articles!
It will refresh your memory and spark some ideas, and will get you back in the flow of worldbuilding if you've had a break from it for a while. - 🎯 Set short term goals leading up to December.
These could be consistency based (like committing to doing some worldbuilding every other day), or wordcount based (like trying to reach a manageable number of words by the end of each week or month).
🎽 Finding your pace
Everyone worldbuilds differently and writes at a different pace - you need to know what works best for you so that you can work with your creativity rather than fight your way through the challenge.
Instead of planning for a perfect month, plan for distractions, holidays, and time for family and friends. If you account for them early, you might even end up with extra time on your hands for more worldbuilding!
There's many different ways you can pace yourself to write 10,000 words during December, here's a few to get you thinking:
- Even split (daily writing)
10k divided by 31 days = 323 words per day. - One day on, one day off
10k/15 days = 667 words per day. - Slow during the week, fast on the weekend
100 words per day on weekdays, 900 per day on the weekend. - Pyramid (mid month peak)
Start the month off at a relaxed pace, then ramp up your wordcount mid month before easing back down again. - Reverse pyramid (mid month rest)
Start and finish the month with a higher wordcount pace to account for a mid-month rest (consider skewing it towards the 25th if you have festivities to celebrate). - Early finish
If you want to be finished by the 24th December you'll need about 417 words per day. Perhaps you want to finish on a different date though! - Thematic chunks
You could also approach this marathon in sections! Plan out what areas you want to develop during the challenge and set wordcount goals per area.
🏅 Setting the right goal
As a reminder from the first post in this series, setting a SMART goal is really important so that you can stay on track, stay motivated, and get that proper sense of achievement when you reach the finish line.
If you've caught yourself staring at the stats page and comparing yourself, your quality of work, or your number of likes to others - think back to the marathon mindset.
What is the runner focussed on?
They're not worried about what the other runners are doing next to them, or who's catching up just behind them.
Whilst it might motivate them, they're not counting how many fans are cheering them on.
No - they're in their own lane and focussed on doing their best and finishing the marathon! 🙌🎉
Aside from finishing 10k, here are some healthier metrics of success you can celebrate that won't lead to competitive burnout:
- The level of creativity and quality of your work in comparison to last year.
- The completion of the goals you set for your focus area during the event.
- Your consistency and writing streak.
- Your engagement and interaction with the community (output, not input).
- The level of enjoyment and fun you're having during the event!
👟 Running a worldbuilding marathon
Once December comes around and WorldEmber begins, remember your goals, keep your planned pace, and enjoy yourself!
Check in with yourself at the end of each week to see how your goal progress is going and how you're feeling. If you need to make adjustments, do so - and make sure to stay hydrated (it's a marathon, remember).
Stop if you're not having fun - I'm going all out this year and I love writing these big long posts about it that make it sound super serious - but it's just a silly little worldbuilding challenge that's just for funsies 😂❤️so go and enjoy it!
Remember, there's always next year!
🧦 Creative cool down
Once the event has concluded and so has the year - celebrate your success! Even if you didn't quite reach your goal, you'll still have more worldbuilding than when you started. 😄
World Anvil usually runs a reading and New Year's Resolutions challenge in the following month and I recommend taking part so that you can reflect on how things went and where you want to aim for next.
As a creative cool down, go through and polish some of your articles, expand those stubs, and jot down any ideas that you want to explore later (just remember to check the WorldEmber rules to know when you're allowed to edit again if you're aiming for certain prizes).
🏞️ Continue training
The last trick to keeping burnout at bay is to keep worldbuilding. Go at a pace that suits you (even if it's a tiny tiny amount) and continue to develop your world and keep up a consistent writing habit until the next challenge.
You've got this!
📰 Bonus posts
My newsletter subscribers got to read these SUPER-EARLY (in August!), but now these are all available to everyone right now:
