How to Get Back Into Writing Your Novel After a Long Break

Every writer needs to step away from their novel at some point. Sometimes it's because life demands it: a chronic illness flares up, a new baby arrives, or work takes over. Other times, you're simply burnt out and could use some rest. Either way, before you know it, weeks (or even months) have gone by since you last opened your draft.

And now? Every time you think about your draft, there's a little knot of guilt in your stomach. You open the document, scroll through a few pages, feel a wave of where was I even going with this?, and close it again. The longer you stay away, the harder coming back feels.

If you're like many of the writers I've worked with, you might feel like you have a lot to do before you can get going again. Maybe you tell yourself you need to make up for the weeks you missed, or reread your entire manuscript to remember where your story was headed. But when getting back to writing feels like such a big undertaking, it's easy to put it off for another day, and then another.

The way out of that cycle isn't to tackle everything at once. It's to make your return feel manageable, with steps small enough that you can actually take them, so each one makes the next one easier.

In this post, I'm going to walk you through five steps to help you get back to your writing after a long break. Let's dive in.

Step #1: Let Go of the Catch-Up Plan

When you've been away from your draft for a while, it's tempting to do the math on what you could have written if you'd never stopped. Seven weeks. At 500 words a day, that's almost 25,000 words. I should be so much further along by now.

And once you've done that math, it's natural to want to make up the difference. In my experience, writers in this spot often plan to write 10,000 words in one weekend, double their usual daily word count, or commit to writing every morning at 5 a.m., even if they've never written that much or that consistently before.

The problem is that a catch-up plan is built around the writer you think you should be, not the life you actually have right now. So you end up setting a goal that might not be realistic given your current circumstances. And when you miss that goal (which is likely, especially if you're still recovering from whatever caused the break), you don't just feel behind. You feel more behind than you did before you started. That moment is often when writers step away again.

That's why I want to encourage you to stop treating those unwritten words as something you owe. The weeks you spent away weren't a failure of discipline. They were a season when your health, your family, or your job needed more of you. That's just evidence that you're a human being.

So, set the catch-up plan aside. Instead of asking how far behind you are, start asking where you left off, which brings us to step #2.

Step #2: Reconnect With Your Story (Without Rereading Every Page)

After weeks or months away, it's normal to feel a little disconnected from your story. You might remember the big picture, but feel fuzzy on the details of what was happening when you stopped. And when that happens, it's tempting to start rereading your manuscript from page one to get everything back in your head.

But rereading an entire draft can take hours (or even days), and it's easy to get pulled into editing along the way. Before you know it, you're tweaking sentences in Chapter Two instead of getting ready to write something new.

So, rather than trying to remember everything, focus on getting just enough context to pick up where you left off.

If you have an outline, read through it to remind yourself where the story is headed. If you don't have an outline, that's okay—just jot down whatever you remember about where you thought the story was going before you took the break.

Then, read just the last scene or two you wrote to remind yourself what happened, where you left your characters, and what they were dealing with when you stopped writing.

The goal here is not to create a new outline or figure out the entire rest of your story. It's just to get reacquainted with your draft so you feel ready to start writing again, which brings us to step #3.

Step #3: Make Your First Session Back Small and Specific

Once you've reconnected with your story, it's time to actually write. But the first session back can carry a lot of pressure. If it doesn't go well, it's easy to take that as proof that you've lost your touch, and that feeling can send you right back into another break.

That's why I recommend giving your first session back one specific job: writing just a few paragraphs. That's it. Not the whole chapter or even the whole scene. Just enough to put new words on the page.

To figure out what to write, start from where you left your characters and ask yourself what needs to happen next to move them toward what you'd planned for the story ahead.

Before you start writing, jot down a quick note to guide those first few paragraphs. For example: Jessie finally calls her sister back, planning to apologize, but her sister answers already crying about something else. A note like that gives you a clear starting point, so you won't spend your session staring at the blinking cursor trying to decide where to begin.

And if what you write feels clunky, let it be clunky. If you can't remember a detail, drop in a placeholder like [CHECK WHAT TOWN SHE GREW UP IN] and keep moving. The point of this first session isn't to write beautifully. It's to show yourself that you can still move your story forward.

So, keep your first session back short, specific, and low-pressure. But one session on its own isn't momentum yet, which brings us to step #4.

Step #4: Stack Small Sessions to Rebuild Momentum

Momentum doesn't come from one great writing day. It comes from returning to your story again and again, so the story stays fresh in your mind and each session picks up where the last one ended.

So instead of waiting for a long, uninterrupted stretch of time, look at the time you actually have this week and plan your next few sessions around it. Maybe that's 20 minutes before the house wakes up, part of your lunch break, or a pocket of time while the baby naps. Short sessions count, especially right now.

Then, at the end of every session, leave yourself a breadcrumb note like the one you wrote in step #3. For example: Finish the phone call. Jessie still hasn't apologized, and she needs to find out why her sister is crying. That way, your next session starts with writing instead of trying to remember what you meant to do.

And let small progress count. If you only write 150 words in a session, those are still 150 words that didn't exist yesterday. If you're like many of the writers I've worked with, you'll find that a few short sessions in a row do more for your momentum than one big push ever did.

So, focus on stringing a few small sessions together instead of expecting any one session to carry all the weight. Once you're writing regularly again, the next thing to think about is how to protect that momentum when life gets in the way, which brings us to step #5.

Step #5: Plan for the Next Break

Now, let's be real. You'll probably need to take another break from your writing at some point. Your illness may flare up again, the baby may hit another sleepless stretch, or a busy month at work may leave no room for writing.

But you can make your next return easier than this one. Keep whatever you used to reconnect with your story in step #2—whether that's your outline or the notes you jotted down—somewhere you can easily find it, and update it as your story changes. And keep leaving breadcrumb notes at the end of every session. If life pulls you away unexpectedly, those materials and your last breadcrumb note can help you pick up where you left off without having to reconstruct everything from memory. (I share more about both of these in this post on finishing a novel with kids at home.)

Finally, I want to encourage you to change how you measure consistency. Consistency doesn't mean writing every day without missing a single one. It means coming back to your story, again and again, even when life gets busy.

So, instead of hoping you'll never need another break, set yourself up so that the next time you come back, you know exactly where to start.

Final Thoughts

If you've been away from your novel for weeks or even months, I hope you'll remember that you don't need to make up for lost time, reread every page, or start over from Chapter One. You just need to make the return manageable.

So, let go of the catch-up plan, reconnect with your story, and give your first session back one small job. Then, string a few short sessions together, and set yourself up so your next break (and return) is easier than this one.

And if you still can't seem to make forward progress (or get to the end of your draft), come check out my free training called "Why You Keep Getting Stuck & How to Finally Finish Your Novel." Give me 60-minutes and I'll share what's likely keeping you stuck, the step-by-step process my students use to finish their drafts, and how to keep writing forward when something changes mid-draft instead of going back to rewrite.