I am prioritizing rest this evening.

Does saying that make anyone else cringe? Hustle culture has taught us that rest is for the weak, that if you have big goals you need to be striving towards them 100% of the time. That if you take time away from your goals, you aren't disciplined enough to achieve them.

Saying I was too tired to write used to make me feel incredibly guilty. I thought that any spare moment I had needed to be spent writing, or at least doing something else productive. I had a deep aversion to doing nothing. I still feel a lot of resistance to relaxing, but in the last year, I have learned to tune that resistance out.

See, I know I don't write well when I'm exhausted.

If I forced myself to write tonight, it would be excruciating, and it would deplete me further. It would make the NEXT writing session even harder. I used to keep showing up to my story with no bandwidth for actually writing it, and that turned writing from a pleasure into a chore. That caused me to drop plenty of projects and never return to them.

So instead, tonight I'm prioritizing rest. I'm not touching my laptop and I'm going to bed early. In order to make sure I do still show up later (because I still need to balance rest and discipline) I have declared to my writing group @quillandcup (and now here) that I will be sitting down with them at 6 a.m., coffee in hand and brain at the ready. Declaring it holds me accountable not only to showing up, but to making sure I'm rested enough to make tomorrow's session worthwhile. It's a lot easier to rest when I know the next writing session is just around the corner. It takes the pressure off of feeling like if I don't write NOW, I never will.

I will write. Tomorrow. When I'm good and ready. And knowing that's a certainty makes doing nothing tonight all the more sweet.

This is a reflection posted by Quill & Cup member Rebecca Tabor on her Instagram @rktabor_writes. Click on the image below to add a writer to your community who can be your reminder to rest -- AND to do the dang thing! If you'd like to make progress with Rebecca, you can often find her at the 7am EST Prickles! That time doesn't work for you? Check out our Prickle Time Master Schedule to see which time would! 

In Quill & Cup, we make progress together on our work in what we lovingly call "Prickles" (quill.. hedgehog.. a group of hedgies is called a prickle). We meet on Zoom, or our kitchen table that extends beyond the screen. So.. picture one kitchen table in a super cozy house, with writers joining with their own mugs and teas or coffees. In regular Prickles, we chat about our characters like they're the neighborhood kids. Then, after we share what we'd like to make progress on in our stories, we mute our mics (but keep our cameras on for accountability - it works!), and get our story a little more ready than it was an hour before :) Alone, but together!

Otherwise, we meet on educational Prickles where we delve into various topics on craft & mindset! We're always learning over here.

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