This narrative originally appeared in the Burnout Issue of The Peak. View the full issue here or more stories on our page.
Are words something possible to run out of?
“Me—run—out—of—words.”
“Words run out of me.”
Hsshdidiidniansdiw, ommoifhqoiqjijfd (keyboard strike, keyboard strike).
A detached and dismembered voice spews. My arteries had formed a blockage from my brain to my hands, killing any hope of worded life. Built by pressure and bricks of perfectionism, the obstruction had taken my vessel captive. A deficiency in confidence ran my creative shores dry, revealing I simply didn’t feel like anything more than what I could create.
The pretty words that once came so easily, didn’t.
If Joan Didion were word play, I was Eve Babitz, tangled in a fraught friendship or a love and hate affair with my own sentences. Mutual jealousy and perpetual longing tailed quietly behind resentment, spurting haphazardly, like magnets that can’t decide whether to meet or repel at each end.
In music coverage I felt paralyzed, missing the brazen way I stumbled through content matter just six months prior. An empty page or blinking cursor felt like a landmarker for bad!
Not quite!
Or could be better!
Burnout is something most creatives tell you to just “get over,” like the flu or a scraped-up knee. Was this burnout, or just an excuse for my dry spell — an internal fountain once spewing infinite words?
What happens when something seemingly innate and natural gets taken from you?
In combination with my own discontentment (and an approaching content deadline) I spoke with a female songwriter about her own experience.
May 14, 2025
Annie Pagel:
With aviators perched on her nose, Pagel saunters over and poses on a patch of grass, 15 minutes late and haphazardly double-parked in the Health Center lot. She is similarly double-parked in her life. As the winner of Battle of the Bands last spring and opening Shabang on Cuesta Ridge, Pagel, is (was) a busy gal. After an era of creating intently (two quarters) and intermingling personal events and alluringly good mental health inspiring her writing, sh- – hit the fan. Writing became painful… familiar. We sit across from each other, the SLO luminary straining her neck aiming for my inline headphone mic that’s not quite long enough to reach her comfortably across the grass. Her inflection drowns out shrieks of Robert Plant from the climbing wall.
“Not that I meant to, but I was just enjoying the writing process so much and then I felt like I wrote everything that I needed to say. Mostly maybe because I am doing well, mentally?” she laughed. Her teeth complemented her face like jewelry.
Like most songwriters, Pagel has the gist or intention of a song in her mind in silhouette, often becoming stuck flushing out exactly how she pictured it.
She feels this is mostly a causation from the “same old same old” approach to writing the uniform way she always has, suggesting reason for change.
“I feel like sometimes you have to change around your methods, not change around your ideas.”
Writing lead and frontman for an all-male rock band can be a tricky maze to navigate. The pressure to create something for the entire group rather than for herself with pressure to spin songs in a new way every time has her constantly wanting to reform and recreate.
“I don’t want to be the same always.”
Pagel fears writing inside the box, willing to sacrifice structure and safety for failure — and the potential to create something greater. She advocated for taking a step back and listening to other artists while not being fearful to experiment and potentially fail.
“I think that one thing I’ve gotten comfortable with is failing. I have so many failed attempts at songs.”
For Pagel this is brutal. “It’s like the last thing you want to do is put yourself in a situation where you’re going to fail. But I think that being uncomfortable is something that people don’t do enough.”
Artists like myself and Pagel become so encapsulated by the outcomes of writing that we can’t even pick up the pen, or when we do it is heavy, making a mess of the page. For Pagel, the process is something that’s meant to be repetitive, but too repetitive eventually the ink won’t flow.
Creating with expectation is a danger zone. A small man in a construction vest waves furiously as others like Pagel and I fly full speed, plummeting off the tracks into immidietism valley.
A mentor of sorts told me a while back to stop writing with “my head but with my heart” and when I was worried about the timing of releasing tracks he spewed god-sent tongues: “lyrics don’t go out of style, production does.”
We transition to the concept of thinking “too hard” vs. simply doing. Laying waste to the disillusionment that thinking harder may spin a better tune. Pagel, sharing her writing time turns overthought and overturned, “if I’m sitting down like, ‘I have to write a new song for my band’” she says robotically.
Pagel and I stumble upon the alarming consensus and equally as jarring realization, breaking bread over the importance of authenticity. The fragility of authenticity falling when pressure is around, pressure to record, succeed or impress.
“It’s not going to be as authentic if you’re like sitting down with a certain goal you have to do. I think for some artists they like that structure, but I think for a lot of people it just kind of creates stress.”
Sacrificing personal writing for band practice, she’s willing to be flexible for the music. She’d rather have a successful show than regret not practicing enough.
Pagel, spread and scooped into an overcooked batch of college hobbies, responsibilities and social events baking at high heat, sports a double life (without the blonde wig). After Shabang, the songstress left her guitar to the corners of her room for weeks at a time, taking the space she needed to live life. The experience, stressful, but well rewarding. Sometimes space and time (like most) is what heals but hurts like hell.
“I think, I think I’ve had a lot more like complexities with—” she stops her thought, “um sorry, I just saw my ex-boyfriend walk by.”
Taken aback by her sighting, Pagel slides her sunglasses up her temples and through her Winehouse-adjacent ringlets (clearly he had been an inspiration for her songwriting).
Pagel continues shaking her head:
“Now I almost like write songs about how I’ve changed and that’s really cool too. So, there’s always something to write about.”
Epilogue
When pressure comes knocking, chaos is sure to follow and lastly — self doubt.
Well maybe it’s, when pressure comes knocking, self doubt is the one who answers the door. I imagine him tall in stature, peering through the ajar door with a top hat and cane in hand, crippled by control freak nature.
Like Pagal, I came to realize that pressure had warped me into my own worst inner critic. My doubt had bred chaos, and an unfair expectation for immediate results. A little doubt is helpful in keeping us humble and rule-abiding humans, but doubt serves no one. There’s no currency or trade-off for hating yourself. Sometimes time and patience is simply what takes the edge off.
I learned to let go and trust myself, leaning into the voice that got me this far. The best parts of ourselves are already inside us. I just wrote a new song the other day!
Pressure can stunt growth, but only if you let it, not if you remember who you are and what you’re capable of. I had to rediscover trust in my own voice. How was I supposed to write authentically while trying to prove myself? Authenticity was my strength, and outside and internal pressure was silencing it.
I still struggle with the intention of my writing, steering it back to my original ways (for myself and my own emotions). It’s not something I’ve magically overcome, but I know what overthinking looks like and how it affects my writing. I’m still working on it. But I recognize it now. I see how it shows up and more importantly, I know how to name it, face it, and keep creating anyway.
Last minute rules of thumb:
- Perfectionism is the root of all evil
- Free yourself from judgment before you even attempt a word
- Keep creating anyway
- Drive a high bargain for what you consider failure
- Time heals all (unfortunately)
- Read a book, sprawl out, eat some olives, take a break
- Hold on loosely and seek inspiration elsewhere
- Routine is double edged sword
- Pressure is tenacious old fellow
