Let your writing breathe

By shan rao

In December of 2020 I started knitting a sweater.

(Bear with me—after all, a sweater is a kind of poem.)

I wasn’t new to knitting; one of my go-to icebreaker fun facts is that I learned to knit when I was four years old (on cheap yellow pencils in lieu of knitting needles, haphazard hats and uneven scarves). This was different though: this was an attempt at control, at order, at something intricate, something I wanted deeply to be proud of. 

In February 2021, I stopped knitting a sweater. 

It wasn’t that I’d given up, more just that my head had drifted sideways, half-adjacent to the kind of brain I needed to believe in this project. I took up crochet; I stitched small sewn gifts. I didn’t stop creating, but I zipped the half-finished sweater and yarn into an old bed sheet bag and stuffed it in a drawer to rest. 

And, somehow, I (mostly) didn’t feel too bad about it. Maybe something in me knew that I’d get back to it eventually. After all, I hadn’t left it to gather just or entangle itself with my other yarn. I’d set it aside with care, wrapped it up in soft plastic and cradled it amongst the finished store bought sweaters I wore. 

In December of 2021 I finished knitting a sweater. In fact, I finished knitting three sweaters!

There was something about the rest, about the ability to give the project the space, the air, it needed. Something about the lack of guilt I felt. I was so much more excited to wear that sweater than I would’ve been if I’d just forced myself to keep knitting it earlier on. And it probably turned out better than it would’ve if I’d grown frustrated and rushed!

Now, I’m not saying there’s no worth to rushing. Deadlines are a part of life—and are often even a helpful framework to structure one’s creative work around. I’m talking about that early half-boiled soupy phase of creating when the haze hasn’t quite lifted and the work hasn’t quite simmered long enough.

It’s so easy to feel pressure to just finish a writing project in the moment. And even when we don’t, we spend our hours feeling guilty about our lack of progress, cracking jokes about writers who don’t write. But I’m giving myself—and you!—permission to let the writing breathe.

Sometimes, what the work needs is for you to walk away, leave the heat on, not stir the pot. 

Keep writing, but work on something else. Maybe try out a new genre! Or a new style, whatever strikes your fancy in the moment. Let yourself enjoy the playfulness that writing can bring. And I’m not saying after the draft is done or you’re satisfied enough. I’m asking you to step away from your writing when you’re at that point of frustration. Give it a little air, stoke the flame. 

And maybe you’ll find that, when you return to it, it’s ready for you to add the next ingredients, stir it a bit more. Maybe you’ll have learned something new about form, about genre, about yourself. Maybe that new sweater will be oh so much cozier than you could’ve ever imagined that past lonely winter.