It is the best of times, it is the worst of times . . . at least when it comes to writing and publishing your books. And depending on what else you have going on, it can also be the most exhausting of times.

For the most part, writers and authors live a pretty precarious balancing act of managing our home, paying bills, buying groceries, raising kids, caring for family members, and just trying to get by. We’re not even going to delve into the stress of current events and the world in general. Add in writing, and you have a very busy life.

No wonder we are all so exhausted.

Yet writers are usually the last ones to put away their work. A week off from our day-to-day jobs usually inspires “I’ll get some great writing time in!” and promises that we’ll reach that target word count. Weekends and evenings often call for the same, finding whatever precious time is available and then hammering out a little more of that manuscript we’re working on.

Don’t get me wrong. We love it—when we don’t hate it. We get lost in a world of our own making, slip off the burdens of our lives, and enter the psyches of our characters. In some ways, it’s better than TV or books, because we are fully invested in what they are doing and feeling and seeing. So when our fingers pause, our characters suddenly stop, shuffle their feet awkwardly (most of them know it’d be rude to just directly address you with “What the heck are you doing? Get on with it!”), and wait patiently for us to start writing again.

Writing can fuel our tanks, but when those tanks are empty, sometimes it’s all you can do to force yourself through. And that doesn’t always do good things for our writing.

When you’re exhausted, it feels like everything has collapsed in on you. Nothing seems to come out or sound right. Words that normally flow feel forced. Writing one hundred words feels like writing ten thousand, and the next day you just delete those hard-won one hundred words because something about them just doesn’t feel right. Engaging with your readers or other authors feels like another thing you have to coerce yourself to do. You’re tired, and yet you sleep badly. Your mental health starts to droop. And you start wondering, Why am I even bothering with this?

This is burnout. And when you’re trying to keep yourself writing and working and balancing all those millions of tasks, it’s hard to find the joy in your writing. That’s part of the problem. We writers tend to internalize the messages we hear from friends. We have to love writing every minute. We have to treat writing like a hobby that feeds our blood and our souls every minute of every day. Love writing. Love it so hard.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I hate that narrative, and I hate feeling pressured to gush about my gratitude every day. Not because I’m not grateful—I am very fortunate to do what I do for a living and enjoy it. I hate it because sometimes I want to be able to have moments of not loving my writing. I want to hate feeling like it is feeding off my lifeblood until I am a dried-up husk of what was once a creative, vibrant human being.

Sometimes I want to be a surly person about my work, even for a minute. But that “must love it always” narrative starts spinning, and then I feel forced to push on instead of doing what I actually need: to breathe and not worry about it, just for a minute.

If you happen to do freelance work, the pressure is amplified. In a career that is very much a roller coaster of feast or famine, the prospect of of turning down work feels like a poverty sentence. “What if my clients find someone better to do my job? What if they stop giving me work? What if I don’t make any money at all for the next month or two?” And the worst part is that every single one of these concerns is entirely possible.

Every freelancer (myself included) can recite a story of that one time they took their first vacation in two years and spent a month or more trying to recover lost work, recover quiet clients, and remind editors that they were still available for work. The prevailing mindset: “Once you turn down work, that tells your editors and clients that you don’t need the work.”

Again, we wonder why we feel tired.

So what do we do? The answer is both simple and incredibly difficult. We have to give ourselves permission to take a break. To take a vacation. Most importantly, we have to give ourselves permission to not write unless we really want to. And it’s OK to be on vacation and not write or think about writing unless that creative nudge comes in hard.

Even writers and authors need to recharge. We need a break from our routines and our own brains. A week or two off can replenish mind, body, and spirit, and give you a chance to miss your work. It can benefit both your physical and mental health. By simply lowering and relieving your stress, you’re reducing your risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, and anxiety—all while giving yourself a little more happiness and time with friends and family. It’s a chance to recharge, to read books for pleasure (or at least without them falling on your face in bed). To remind yourself how much you love what you do.

More importantly, that little break will allow your creativity some time to recharge and return your words—not by choice but by inspiration.

You don’t even necessarily have to go anywhere. Just give yourself time to prepare for your vacation by ensuring all your important work tasks are completed or that you’ll be able to resume them when you return. Let your editors and/or readers know you’ll be away. Temporarily disable or mute any apps that are work related. Create an email autoreply. Most importantly, protect your boundaries at that time.

It’s easy to get lost to the mindset that we can’t afford to take a vacation. But in truth, we often can’t afford not to.

Set some time aside for you and your health, and your writing will thank you for it. It might be just what the doctor ordered.