Jess💭

My combo of bipolar-2 and BPD means that I go through a lot of depressive phases, and they can be a huge challenge to my work ethic and writerly productivity. I’m the type of writer who gets much worse if I don’t at least touch my manuscript or think about writing for a day (mind you, that doesn’t always mean adding words!), so here are some tips and tricks I figured out to navigate the complicated waters of writing during/around depressive episodes.

one step at a time — long-term planning tends to lead to disappointment and anger at myself if I fail, especially because I’m bad at managing self-expectations while working at a lower capacity

bite-sized goals — they don’t take many spoons, but meeting and exceeding them can restore some. Here are some small goals I go for:

a sentence per day

five minutes of writing at a time

just read the last finished scene

read the last scene and highlight the good/bad passages

read the last scene and fill in the metadata (in Scrivener—if I hadn’t done that already) or write a two-sentence synopsis of it

read a page of a book

appearance changes — just like with my personal appearance (hair dye!), changing small things can do a lot to help restore a bit of a feeling of control and break through the depressive routine:

play with different fonts until one feels right for the story

change the background or document icons

experiment with a colour/colour scheme for POV threads

freewrite the first thing that comes to mind, different from your main project, for as long as you want/can

pinterest and aesthetics — making them can be tricky because depression often means nothing is coming out right, but just finding WIP-related visuals and saving them somewhere can get some creative juices flowing and maintain that connection with the story

headphones and daydreaming — sometimes just lying down with music is all I can do, and that’s fine. I like finding songs that fit in some way with my stories, and time spent on visualising scenes while listening to music totally counts as writing time

If these sound like procrastination to you, think again: they all help keep that thread between you and your story alive, even when moods and mental states make it thin and frayed. That thread is important—it’s there for a reason—so don’t let anyone tell you to stop doing whatever’s in your power to help it hold.

The most important thing, for me, is to remember that my productivity levels fluctuate. When things get really Bad, when I can’t work as much as I’d like or am used to, it’s important to acknowledge it because really, really, it’s okay. Tiny steps are still steps—and if there’s a day when even they prove impossible, that really is a day to just spend taking a break and recharging in whatever way works (I watch How I Met Your Mother for the billionth time and sleep a whole lot).