A hiatus from a timeout

Fact of the day: The shark has to keep swimming to draw enough oxygen into its gills and to stay afloat. Stop moving, and it perishes.

A friend from journalism school has just started a blog and her latest post was about the timeouts in her life, you know, the times when you throw your hands up and said: "Enough!" and quit something because you got tired of it, or you were too busy, or because there were too many obstacles. It could be any reason, really.

It was beautifully written and it made me ponder a bit, when I really should be working on an anthology. Aack!

How many times have I called for timeouts? And timeout from what? One of them was similar to my friend's--we both stopped writing with our own voices because our jobs don't call for that. She works for a transport authority, and spends her time writing apologetic letters to the public (I think). I turned into a cleaner instead, picking up after other people's messes which they call writing: straightening out their warped and crinkled sentences, and discarding the grammatical mistakes they litter all over the prose.

I once complained to a colleague that I never get to produce anything that I can call my own work. It's always about helping others to get published. Whether I get acknowledged for my contribution is entirely up to the generosity of the author and editor.

But at least we've both addressed the interruption by setting up blogs. A fellow blogger gave this piece of advice to anyone who's striving to hone a skill (including writing): don't stop; keep at it even if most of the stuff that you churn out are mediocre. Surely something prized will emerge from the chaff.

Not that I disagree, but I think sometimes it's OK to take a short break. (I don't believe that sharks don't sleep, OK?) After all, it could be a timeout-or-burnout kind of situation. I remember being so drained from writing for a travel publication during my internship that I basically flipped and my, erm, medical condition worsened. I think if not for the enforced hiatus, my friend and I would not have been able to appreciate the pleasure that writing brings us. It's knowing when to get back into the game that's essential.

But that's easy to say and hard to carry out. It's easy to get carried away by the flow of current preoccupations and distractions; it's hard to overcome inertia and to get yourself into swing of things again, like stretching muscles shrivelled from disuse (ouch). Or trying to join the main traffic flow from a slip road during a traffic jam. Dumb analogy, but it keeps swimming in my head and I had to get it out of the system, sorry.

So call for a timeout if you want to, but stay nimble, and keep in sight the road ahead of you.