The benefits of a break

[malenkayacherepakha]

I've just got home following a weekend away in Cornwall with my boyfriend, and wow, the break has helped so much in terms of rediscovering my motivation and enthusiasm for writing.

Before we went away I was feeling quite meh about my writing and was completely blocked on a couple of fics. This weekend has changed that entirely. One morning while my boyfriend surfed I wrote nearly 1k of my daily deviant fic which I was totally stuck on (by the way, if anyone fancies betaing some Harry x Pansy smut give me a shout!), another day I had a dream about my banging birthday fic which has given me the start of my plot, and I explored a load of Cornish villages and beaches which has really inspired me to get cracking on my long fic (set in a west country coastal village).

I also took a break from the Drarry discord which is still ongoing - I was sad to temporarily leave but it's done me a lot of good so far, so I'm not going to go back quite yet. My new little writing server is really delivering on the supportive community aspect which is brilliant. 

This is all to say, breaks are important! It's so easy to think that we have to power through, to keep trying to get the words out, but sometimes you just need to switch off and let things settle in your mind, and then the ideas and words might just start flooding back.

And seeing as images on Dreamwidth are still far beyond my capabilities, here's a link to a tumblr post with some photos from my weekend, along with a little bit about how they're inspiring my fic!

Comments

[gracerene]

Aww, yay to all of this! So nice what a good weekend away can do for the soul. <3 I know when I went over to England a couple of years ago with Dicta, we were both in a weird fandom space but found a lot of HP inspiration exploring! We visited an old manor house in Wiltshire and basically spent hours photographing everything and talking about all our Malfoy Manor inspo, LOL

[malenkayacherepakha]

Oh that sounds like a lovely trip, and I can imagine it was so inspiring!

[sdk]

Oh gosh, those photos are beautiful! I'm glad you had such a great weekend and that your break was refreshing and motivating!

(if you do ever want to upload photos to dreamwidth, you can go here: https://www.dreamwidth.org/file/new And you can find that link under the "create" tab on the homepage where it says "upload images". Then go here: https://www.dreamwidth.org/file/list to view all of your images and copy over the code for the full size image or the thumbnail image. You can change the size of the thumbnail image and the code will change too. But if you ever want to just link directly to an image you uploaded to tumblr, you can use <*img src="imagelinkhere"*> [take out the * in the code] and post it like that, but that will automatically be full size, which might end up being too big. If this is confusing, let me know! I'm also assuming you are using html to make your posts, and if you're using rich text, it's a bit different!)

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thank you!

Ooh thanks, I'll give that a try next time and hopefully it'll work :)

[walgesang]

Hooray for breaks and your photographs are fantastic! I've only been to England once and your pictures transported me right back there, so lovely. I'm going on a solo break this coming weekend and am looking forward to doing some major writing and reading, so here's to inspiration! ♥

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thank you - I've got endless photographs of cottages on my phone now ready for me to revisit when I'm writing haha. I hope your break is as inspiring and motivating as mine was!

[walgesang]

Yay and thank you! I hear we have a snowstorm coming, but nothing's going to stop me. Not even if I have to drive 5 mph the whole way! :D

I'm always up for endless pictures of cottages, too!

[enchanted_jae]

Good to hear you've got your writing mojo back!

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thanks, I'm very pleased to have it back!

[magpie_fngrl]

Oh yay for the break and the inspiration! I also find breaks very motivating but only when I've done something exciting and active during them, like going on a trip, meeting with friends, playing with my niece. If I've spent the break watching Netflix, it doesn't really work.

I love Cornwall and would love to go back and spend longer there. I travelled there for a weekend a few years ago because my orig YA is set near there, and so is my drarry WIP.

The pics on tumblr are gorgeous and they make me wish I was there.

[malenkayacherepakha]

I totally agree - I've had a few breaks where I've kind of just stayed at home, watching Netflix and half trying to write and they definitely don't work as well as breaks where I get out and do things.

Cornwall is a really lovely place - I don't live there but am not too far away so we get to pop down pretty regularly. I hope you get to go again soon. I'm excited to see how you write it too, I'm so here for more fics and books set in the South West.

Thanks!

[digthewriter]

Nice pictures.

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thanks!