There’s a well-known phenomenon in physical training and general health – we heal when we rest. If you’re sick or injured, you’ll recover much more quickly if you get lots of sleep. If you’re at the gym every day, you’ll see greater gains if you have one day every week of active rest. The same applies to the creative arts.
What’s active rest? Ah, there’s the rub. It means not just sitting around eating Cheetos and watching Netflix all day (although there is a case that’s a good way to promote mental health if it’s only a once-a-while activity) but it means moving around without pushing your limits.
Physical training is all about pushing your limits a little more each time. Every time you drive against your previous limitations, you encourage your body to improve. But it’s not a singular upward trajectory. If you look at the graphic above, you can see that you have a baseline and then you train to push beyond that. If you train a good amount – not too easy or too hard – you’ll have a downturn in performance that then leads to a recovery period that will result in a small gain. Imagine that same image repeated ad infinitum and you’ll see it’s an overall continuous upward trajectory of slow but maintained progress.
Write every day? Fuck that bullshit. I hate rules like that and they’re punitive to anyone but the most privileged. Most of us have lives and responsibilities and jobs (I’m a martial arts instructor and spent a decade as a personal trainer, which is why you’re getting this particular analogy). You don’t have to write every day. But you do have to be a writer every day – think like a writer, see the world like one. The writing is the equivalent of the physical training, the not writing but being a writer is the equivalent of the active rest.
To go back to the title of this, the active rest is the refreshing of the well. If you draw water from the same well all the time, eventually the water level gets too low. What water you do draw is muddy and gritty and tastes bad. You have to step back, let the rain fall, let well refill, so you can draw fresh, tasty water again. Any creative pursuit is like that. Writing requires fallow periods of refreshment, where you can recover from your exertions, where you can let the rain refill your well of creativity. Too long away from writing will see your gains diminish, of course, but a sustained process of writing and refreshing will hopefully see overall continued improvements, both in your craft and, with a bit of luck, your career.
Why am I blathering on about all this right now? Well, I just finished a novel, and sent it over to my agent. It’s the first time I’ve written anything of novel length that is entirely without supernatural elements. Plenty of human monsters – well, one in particular – but otherwise it’s the most “commercial thriller” kind of thing I’ve ever written. Which is interesting. I hope my agent thinks so too. I really like it, and hopefully it’s as good a book as I think it is. Of course, we’re always the worst judge of that stuff, so time will tell.
And now I’m having to remind myself to refresh the well. Part of me is self-berating: “Why aren’t you working? Don’t be a slacker! Write more!” But the more experienced part of me is the voice of reason. “Rest,” it says. “Read, watch movies, walk the dog. Refresh your well!” All the time I’m resting, I’m seeing the world with a writer’s eye and my story brain is filing all sorts of things away. That’s the well refreshing.
Next on my agenda is a short story commission I need to write and just yesterday I came across something that gave me the seed of inspiration I needed for that project. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been actively allowing myself to chill out. Then once that’s written I’ll be getting back to the small town horror novel I put aside last year. I’m excited to get back into that and finish it. But not just yet. This week, I’m refreshing.
What I’ve Been Enjoying
So what have I been refreshing the well with? All kinds of good stuff, actually. In TV land, I’ve finally started catching up and watching Breaking Bad. I’m almost at the end of S3 now and I can see why it’s so popular. I’m binging it like mad. It’s a brilliantly written drama and every now and then it has some absolutely masterful strokes of storytelling. I’m loving it. And yes, I’ve got Better Call Saul lined up to watch next, as people keep telling me that’s necessary.
With reading, I finished Daphne by Josh Malerman that I mentioned in the last newsletter. Malerman is always brilliant and this is maybe a new favourite by him. I also just read The Massacre at Yellow Hill by C.S. Humble. It’s the first in a horror western trilogy and book 2 is out in a couple of months. I’ve got an advance copy of book 2 from Cemetery Dance to read, so I thought I’d better read book 1 first. I really enjoyed it – it’s a cool mash-up of cosmic horror, monster hunter and western. Definitely worth checking out. I just started book 2, A Red Winter in the West, last night.
And otherwise I’ve been taking care of jobs around the house, going for long walks with Rufus dog and generally allowing time for self-care. I’m still teaching kung fu and qi gong in the day job, of course, and still doing other work stuff like the mentorships and all that. I can’t afford to literally not work, I’m nowhere near that successful. But my own creativity is laying fallow this week. I’ll soon get back to work on that commissioned short story.
Right, I think that’s all from me for now. Remember, if you’re around the new social platform, Bluesky, you can find me there now at @alanbaxter.bsky.social Otherwise I’m still loitering around all the usual places, for better or worse.
Hot respect, my good fiends. Be kind, be well, keep in touch.
Al