Cover Photo: In this black and white photograph, we see two pale-skinned arms reaching up from the bottom of the photo, as if stretching or reaching toward the sky.
Photograph by Toan Nguyen/Unsplash

Self-Doubt and Giving Yourself Space

In the final installment of this three-part column, Eva Recinos explores how taking time away from writing is an important part of the process

this overthere

Make Your Art No Matter What

Make Your Art No Matter What

If I take time away or rest, maybe I’ll miss an opportunityI won’t be good enough later; I need to write this idea down Can I please just have this day, or this hour, or this evening off?The Great Pottery Throw Down

The Book of DelightsWriter’s Digest

Less walking, more writing, you loser

If you lazily take the day off, other people will get ahead and your writing will never get [to] the level you want it to be

If I rest now, I’ll be more focused and motivated for my work the next day

I have no doubt that you’ll create something you love when you come back. And if you don’t, there’s always the next blank page.

Eva Recinos is a Los Angeles-based editor and writer. Her profiles, features and reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, GOOD, The Guardian, KCET Artbound, Art21, Bitch, Jezebel and more. Her essays have appeared in Electric Literature, PANK, Blood Orange Review, Catapult, Refinery29 and more. She was a 2019 Idyllwild Writer's Week Nonfiction Fellow and a 2021 Pen America Emerging Voices Fellowship finalist. Eva runs a free monthly newsletter for creatives called Notes from Eva.

Photograph by Elaine Torres