“Unfortunately, the practice of leaving fields fallow is falling by the wayside. We have become obsessed with economics and productivity. If a piece of land looks empty, then we rush to fill it. Think of the crops it could yield, the profits! If the soil starts to struggle, then we assist it with chemicals. We cannot abide the idea of a resource under-utilized. We do not wait for nature to take its course, to restore the earth in due time.
Similarly, we chug caffeine to keep ourselves going when we are tired. We multi-task to maximize our efficiency, to squeeze every last second out of our days. We look for formulas and shortcuts. We aim for more more more, because more is better, never mind what we can healthily sustain.This is no way to live, and it is especially no way to write.
[...] I had been over-working my fields. I was desperately trying to salvage an old manuscript, and harvest a new one, and sow more seeds into every inch of earth that I could see. In between the ambitious, hopeful rows of my novels, I planted short stories, essays, poems, blog posts, tweets, emails… Anything and everything. But of course, the land could not support all of that. By trying to grow too much too fast, I was depleting my soil of nutrients, attracting pests and disease, creating an unruly, inhospitable chaos — not to mention wasting my own precious energy.
Thankfully, a deeper instinct within me cried out, calling for quiet. For a break. I heeded the call, perhaps because I was spread so thin that I lacked the willpower to resist, or perhaps because I could see my fields suffering and knew that they needed to be razed to the ground in order to rise again.
Either way, that is exactly what they have done. And now I am writing again — tenderly slipping seeds into the soil — and I can feel the difference. The earth is no longer weary and dry, but rather dark and rich, eager to nurture my words, my ideas. This kind of fertility cannot be forced, only encouraged through good practices for both the farmer and the land.
I’m not saying that we should all stop writing for months at a time. Personally I hope never to need such a long fallow period again! (But maybe I will, and that’s OK.) I’m only saying that I think many of us fear idleness, as if not producing is evil, a poison. But in my opinion, what’s truly toxic to our work — the work of creating art, of finding and sharing beauty and truth and experience — is to push too far. To focus on output rather than input. To view rest as an enemy, rather than as another tool in our toolbox.”
-- Kristan Hoffman, “Fallow Fields: An Argument for Letting Your Creativity Rest”
