How do you go from drained to energetic, and how do you maximize your energy as an author? I asked Susan Stewart. She’s the senior nonfiction editor with Elk Lake Publishing, and she’s published three books, including the award-winning Formatting eBooks for Writers. Susan speaks at conferences all over the country about how to be less stressed and more productive.
Why is writing so physically draining?
Susan: Writing is physically demanding, even though it doesn’t appear to be since we’re just sitting at a keyboard. But it takes mental and emotional energy to write, and that’s hard work. Thinking is hard work. Working through emotions is hard work, and all of that becomes physically draining on the rest of our body.
Thomas: It’s rather shocking. I was working on a short piece last week, and by the time I was done, I was just spent. I thought, “This is crazy.”
What can writers do to build stamina so they can write for longer?
Thomas: How can we build stamina or make writing less draining?
Susan: I don’t know how to write for longer. I only have so many writing hours in me in a day. I hear about people who regularly sit down and write for eight hours or more. My max is probably four or five hours. Of course, I switch up my writing. I don’t just work on the book or article in progress. I move around. I’ll work on a blog post, then my chapters or editing. That helps keep me mentally clear.
Each writer has to find their own sweet spot. If it’s an hour a day, then it’s an hour a day. If it’s ten hours a day, be thankful you can do that and crank that book out in 30 days.
Thomas: Part of it is also avoiding things that drain your energy so you can devote more energy to your writing.
What drains energy, and how can we avoid those things?
Know Your Prime Time
Susan: One of the things that drains energy is not knowing when you are at your prime. I’m at my prime at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. When I sit down at my computer each morning, the first thing I do is write. I don’t look at social media. I write because I know that’s the best time of the day for me.
Other writers’ brains don’t even get geared up until 10:00 at night, and that’s their best time of the day. Knowing what time you work best helps because you’re not trying to trudge through your 500 words.
Know Your Emotional Threshold
You also have to know what your body and emotions can handle. If I’m writing an emotional piece, sometimes I have to quit after 15 minutes and let my emotions settle in. Sometimes, I even deal with the emotions that come up. My break may last several days before I get back to that kind of piece.
Know Your Body
The final thing is taking care of yourself and knowing what your body can handle. For instance, how long can you sit? How many times do you need to get up in an hour? We’re back to what works for you. There’s no formula.
Thomas: I really like the idea of reserving high-energy times for high-energy tasks because there are also low-energy tasks that don’t require much effort. For example, checking email doesn’t take a lot of emotional energy. It’s equally important to recognize your low-energy times. If you know you’re typically sluggish right after lunch, that’s the perfect time for easier tasks.
The problem is that we often tackle easy tasks first. For instance, if you’re a morning person, you might wake up and immediately dive into email, social media, or other urgent but low-priority tasks. By the time it’s 11 a.m., you’re starting to work on writing or other high-focus tasks, but then lunch comes around, and afterward, you’re drained. As a result, your most important work doesn’t get your best energy, and your day feels wasted.
Instead, if you reverse that pattern and spend your first four hours of the day on high-focus tasks like writing, you can handle the easier, low-energy tasks like email or social media before or after lunch. This way, your day is both productive and less exhausting because you’re using your high-energy time effectively.
Susan: People ask me, “How are you able to do all the things you do?” It’s because I know when I should be checking email, writing emotional content, or writing blog posts. Some blogs are fairly easy for me to hammer out, so I do those in a low-energy time and then go back to editing. God made each one of us as individuals for a reason. We’re not meant to be carbon copies of each other. What works for me probably won’t work for you. You have a baby, after all.
Thomas: Having a baby certainly complicates things, though the core principles remain the same. How those principles are implemented can change significantly. For example, my high-energy time isn’t the same as it was before I had a baby. Now, with a baby waking up and crying at night, my mornings often look very different.
I’m fortunate to have a wife who handles most of the nighttime wake-ups, but there are mornings when she’s been up so much during the night that I take over. My morning routine now includes getting the baby out of bed, dressed, fed, and cleaned up. It’s a far more involved process than before. It used to be as simple as handing the baby to my wife, and magically, she was fed. Now, food has to be prepared, and the cleanup can be extensive. We even bought a full-body smock for our daughter because breakfast for her is a full-contact sport that sometimes ends with a bath. We’ve joked about installing a kitchen shower just to spray her off after meals!
The principle remains the same. It’s important to identify your high-energy times. During certain seasons of life, those times can be a moving target. With a baby, things change rapidly. Having a two-month-old is vastly different from having a ten-month-old. In just eight months, the challenges shift. While she wakes up less at night now, she requires much more attention during the day. It’s a constant adjustment, but finding and adapting to those high-energy times is key.
Susan: People with full-time jobs away from home face a similar challenge. They have to be in a specific place at a specific time for a set amount of time, which can make finding time for other priorities difficult. Some people suggest squeezing in writing during short time slots, like 15 minutes at lunch. But if you’re barely able to write a coherent sentence during that time, it’s not your prime time for productivity.
Instead, you might need to adjust your schedule to find your best moments. That could mean waking up 15 minutes earlier in the morning or staying up 15 minutes later in the evening. Obligations often require shifting things around, and it’s about figuring out what works best for you.
I’m fortunate that I don’t have to leave my house for work and can structure my schedule to suit my needs. Ultimately, it comes back to tailoring your approach to what works best for your life, season, and situation.
How do you recommend that writers recharge emotionally?
Susan: As a nonfiction writer, my emotional pieces often deal with personal experiences, which means revisiting and processing those emotions. Sometimes, that requires setting the piece aside for a week or even a month to give me the space to work through those feelings.
Taking care of my physical health plays a big role in managing emotions. We are physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. When I maintain my physical health, it becomes easier to navigate emotional challenges.
On top of that, I have a family filled with human beings who have their own emotional needs. Sometimes, I need to help address those or simply be present as part of the process.
This past year, we had three deaths in our family. Those were emotional times when I needed to set aside my emotional writing and do the easy stuff for a while. But maintaining my physical and spiritual health is just as important as maintaining my emotional health. They all work together.
Thomas: It’s also important to schedule buffer time. If you’ve scheduled every single minute of your day, you have no time to deal with the crises of life. Unexpected things happen. You might have an unexpected illness or an unexpected death in the family.
If your boat is sitting just one inch above the waterline, every wave is splashing into the boat. However, if you have more margin in your life, your boat will ride higher, and you can take the waves of life better.
How do you include buffer time and keep from being swamped with every new wave?
Susan: I’m very much a scheduler. My children used to joke that I plan spontaneous activities, but it’s less about strict scheduling and more about having a solid routine. For example, I typically get to my keyboard by 5:00 a.m. to start my day with writing. I prioritize working on my own projects first, then move on to editing for Elk Lake Publishing.
I also dedicate specific days to particular tasks. For instance, I set aside one day each week to focus on a conference I’m involved with. It’s my go-to routine.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is the power of the word “no.” Sometimes, you even have to say no to your family to ensure you remain physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy enough to handle all your responsibilities. Building in buffers is essential.
For me, those buffers include specific times of the day, usually around lunchtime or shortly after, when I unwind. This might mean playing a relaxing computer game or reading. I’m also a swimmer, and I swim three days a week. Swimming is my way of refreshing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Others find their own methods. Cec Murphy, for instance, runs, and that serves the same purpose for him. The key is understanding what works for you personally.
Learning to say “no” is the best way to create and protect those buffers. We don’t have to take on every obligation or opportunity that comes our way. Our pastor once said, “A need is not a call.” That principle applies to writing and professional life as well. We don’t have to say yes to everything, even to opportunities that seem incredible. For example, accepting an invitation to write a guest blog that might reach a million readers isn’t always the right choice. Six months ago, I might have declined this interview because it would have infringed on my buffer time.
That two-letter word is a powerful tool for maintaining balance and focus.
Thomas: Every time you say yes to something, you’re simultaneously saying no to everything else you could have done with that time. For example, by saying yes to this interview, you’re saying no to whatever else you might have done during this time.
It’s easy to say yes in the moment, especially to the person directly in front of you, without realizing that you’re pre-committing your future self to say no to someone or something else. If you’re not mindful of who or what you’re saying no to, it could end up being your family, and that can be very costly in the long run.
Susan: When we say yes to everything that comes our way, we might unintentionally interfere with someone else’s calling. There are times when a ministry or task is meant for someone else, but by jumping in too quickly, we take on something that wasn’t meant for us. It’s important to consider whether God is truly calling us to respond to a general need or if he has someone else in mind.
This is why I carefully consider any opportunity before saying yes. I want to be sure it’s what God intends for me to do rather than making the decision based on my own personal reasons or motivations.
Thomas: There’s a powerful story in the Gospels where Jesus encounters a Gentile woman who asks him to heal her child from demonic possession. Jesus responds, “It’s not fitting to give to the dogs what is intended for the children,” a statement that shocks everyone. As Gentiles reading this passage, we might think, “Why is Jesus brushing off this woman?”
But when you consider his ministry as a whole, it’s actually consistent. Jesus often healed Gentiles from a distance, and it was usually after marveling at their faith. For instance, Jesus admired the centurion’s understanding of authority and simply said, “Go home; your servant is healed.”
So why would Jesus initially say no to the Gentile woman? I spent a lot of time reflecting on this and came to realize it wasn’t out of spite or hate. Instead, it was because he loved her and Gentiles in general. Jesus knew his earthly ministry was limited in time and scope. To fulfill his mission, establish the foundation for the church, and say everything that needed to be said, he had to remain incredibly focused. His initial response wasn’t a rejection but a reflection of that focused purpose.
Jesus’ earthly ministry wasn’t focused on the entire world but specifically on the children of Israel. Within Israel, he concentrated on a smaller group. He ministered to the 5,000 who came to hear him speak and genuinely listened to his message. But his focus went deeper as he invested in the 72 whom he sent out on a mission and even more intensely in the 12 disciples who were always by his side. Within that group, he gave special attention to Peter, James, and John, who were with him at pivotal moments like the Mount of Transfiguration and were privy to his innermost teachings. That level of focus is remarkable.
Ultimately, this strategy bore fruit. Those three inspired the 12, who in turn influenced the 5,000, who then reached the world. Today, 2,000 years later, we are believers in Christ because Jesus chose to focus deeply and trust in God’s plan. He trusted that others, like Paul and Apollos, would be raised up to take the gospel to places like Rome and beyond. Jesus’ willingness to prioritize and trust God’s larger plan is a powerful example of focused ministry.
If I had been Jesus’s marketing director, I’d have said, “Jesus, this Jerusalem tour has been great, but we’ve got to get to Rome because that’s the center of the world. Once we reach Rome, we’ll reach the rest of the world very quickly!” And I would have been wrong.
I might have said, “We’ll get more likes on a Rome book than we’ll ever get with a Jerusalem book.” And Jesus would say, “I’m not in it for the likes. I’m in it for the transformation, and the transformation comes from focused, intentional time.”
From reading the rest of the Gentile woman’s story, we know that she replied, “Yes, but even the dogs get the scraps from the table.” Jesus marvels at her faith and tells her to go home because her daughter has been healed.
You don’t see him chasing and pursuing Gentiles. And I think that that’s a powerful principle. You mentioned asking God, “What is my calling and what isn’t?” so that you’re not poorly doing what God has called somebody else to do. Jesus was not set up well to go to the Gentiles. He wasn’t a Roman citizen. When Paul got thrown in jail, he was able to flash his citizenship card and get out of jail. Jesus wouldn’t have been given that kind of courtesy. God didn’t prepare him to go into the Gentile world.
In writing and marketing, focus is key. Knowing exactly who you’re speaking to makes your message more powerful and ensures you’re not wasting time and energy on those you’re not called to reach.
How do you cultivate your spiritual well-being?
Susan: We need to ensure that what we’re writing is what God has truly called us to write and not simply chasing what’s popular, what’s selling well, or what’s featured on a blog with a million followers. Sometimes, writing what God calls us to can have a greater impact on a smaller, 1,000-follower blog than following trends ever could.
Thomas: There’s nothing wrong with following trends, but ultimately, we follow Christ, and we want to obey him.
And yet, for novelists, it makes sense to write the kind of books that people want to read when writing novels is how you earn money to provide for your family. But you always want to do that while listening to the Holy Spirit to make sure you’re doing it in a way that honors God.
How do we manage our stress so that we can write from a place of joy and peace?
Thomas: Writing can be very stressful, especially when you have different people and deadlines. So how do we manage our stress so that we can be stress-free or at least low-stress writers and write from a place of joy and peace?
Susan: Part of it is implementing that learning to say no and building in buffer times. We’re rarely surprised by deadlines; we know when they’re coming. If I have a deadline next week, I won’t plan to attend a retreat during that time. Managing our schedules, building in breaks, and learning to say no are key to staying healthy.
I’m a strong advocate for taking care of our physical well-being to manage stress. As I’ve mentioned, I’m a swimmer. I also enjoy working in my garden. When I’m stuck on a sentence or paragraph, pulling weeds helps clear my mind and reduce stress.
Another powerful stress reliever is spending time alone. Throughout Scripture, we see examples of leaders like Moses, David, and Jesus taking time away to recharge. Alone time allows us to reflect on what’s causing the stress, whether it’s the emotional weight of a project or the dynamics with people around us.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to tell your family, “I have a big project coming up and need some time.” Build in the time, make your needs known, learn to say no, and don’t hesitate to step away from the project when you need to reset.
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