here's a little thing ppl never tell you, but is true. you can actually stop doing any creative process, cold turkey, for years at a time; pick it back up later on, and find that you have progressed in your skill level. seriously only because you have experienced. you have witnessed. you have observed. and, through all of that, you have aged. just by existing you have gained so much additional knowledge, skill, and information that you would not have thought possible.
sure, it may not be a massive jump in skill or quality, obviously parts of you will be "out of practice" if you aren't working the muscle memory. but it's these observations, hidden chunks of knowledge, and your life experiences that contribute to the greater act of creating over a longer period of time.
i know this because i am someone who serially picks up and puts down hobbies over a VERY long stretch of time (not just years! decades!), and someone who actively hates practicing, conditioning, drills or anything that requires me to do something for the rote "betterment" of the craft. without having done much of that at all, i still have noticed this every single time, in every single creative hobby i've picked back up. and sometimes it's not like, a directly transferable "Better" result, but it's using information i wasn't consciously thinking of before, or knowing some part of myself better.
i think this is probably my favorite antidote to the fear of aging i've come across yet. now that i've found this out i can't wait to see what i create with the rest of the years i have left. it's so exciting to think that maybe my best work is still ahead of me. and i don't care how long it takes.
mood. I've gone on months long hiatuses and still came out doing better art than I was before after that little shaking off of accumulated rust - my output over the past three years has been pretty minimal and yet people tell me I've improved a lot all the time. Some of that comes down to me just being prone to ambiently picking apart my own work, analyzing it just for the sake of giving my head something to do sure, but most of it's just... being out there in the world more, experiencing more and getting to incorporate all that completely unconsciously.
To that end too, don't let anyone tell you that taking some downtime is the same as slacking off. In fact, don't let anyone tell you it's anything other than an essential part of the process all in its own right; not only do you need to rest and relax those artistic muscles, but all work all the time leaves no room for enrichment and makes for an uninspired final result as you find yourself running in circles.
