Writing Seasons Part 4: Season of Rest

Set writing aside completely and focus on nourishing what’s tucked away inside yourself

This final part of Writing Seasons takes us somewhere quieter, deeper, and perhaps most countercultural: the Season of Rest. Rest is not the absence of creativity — it’s where creativity gathers. For many writers, this season arrives uninvited and misunderstood. But if we learn to honor it, we discover it carries wisdom we can’t access any other way.

Set writing aside completely and focus on nourishing what’s tucked away inside yourself.

This season was probably the hardest one for me to wrap my arms around.

It’s the season where the answer to writing is “no” but you may not know why.

It’s the season where “rest” is tending to all the parts of your life and self except the ones the world likes to applaud. It is a “no accolades” kind of inner productivity. It’s the season that I thought completely disqualified me as a writer and editor. Because who would trust an editor who stops working?

So I kept trying to sneak in just a little bit of productivity and achievement, a few freelance clients here and there. I couldn’t let “no” really be the answer — that is, until my body fell apart and I had a dissociative break where I couldn’t remember how to edit for a full year.

The more I reflect on the Season of Rest, I realize that it had tried to show up multiple times in my adult life, only I resisted it, thinking it was luring me into laziness or, worse, invisibility.

I thought Rest was me not wanting to do hard things.

But I don’t see it that way now that I have felt the nourishment it can bring, however involuntarily it may show up. In my Season of Rest, I let myself really play and say “yes” to things that had no functional or productive value.

I worked daily with my senses and understanding my nervous system’s unique ways of telling me when I was ready to play or I needed a nap.

I played a lot in my kitchen. I cycled through a bunch of sensory products — my collection of bath products, lotions and face creams felt like playing in a candy store. I sat in nature and talked to trees, which felt pretty odd at first, but over time I discovered trees provided the kindest sort of “listening ears.”

I worried a lot about when I would be “better,” and I felt genuinely frightened that I may discover I was never a writer at all. (I did not discover this. I discovered the opposite.) These days I feel confident in saying that a Season of Rest is necessary and that writing will find each of us again, perhaps in new, surprising ways.

Seasons of Rest will look different for everyone, but my sense is that this season is a little bit terrifying for all of us.

The invitation from a Season of Rest is to help us develop some broader perspective for what it means to be a writer. It wants us to build confidence in the cosmic creativity all around us and — instead of working and hustling — open to ask: What is already here for me now?

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Wrapping Up the Four Seasons

Whether you’re currently musing, tending, crafting, or resting — may this framework offer you more trust in your process. Let Writing Seasons remind you that your writing is never stagnant. It’s part of something cyclical, adaptive, and resilient.

There’s no “wrong” place to be — just the place you're in, and the courage to meet it honestly.

Whenever you’re ready, your next season will come. And you won’t miss it.

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Tomorrow, I’ll share a personal post to close out this series — a reflection on how I’ve come to understand seasons not just in my writing, but in my entire creative and publishing life.

The seasons don’t just shape how we write. They shape how we see.