Dancing with writer burnout

Or how I learned to go with the flow instead of flogging myself along

Burnout. That's something we all dance with as writers.

I hit the wall late last fall and didn't work my way past burnout until just recently. Oh, I could keep writing on the work-in-progress, though it felt like a slog to get my usual 2000 words a day composed. But it was the only thing I could even begin to do on the writing front. Everything else--other stuff I had committed to, including volunteer activities as well as participating in virtual conventions just felt like I was getting more responsibilities piled on without any benefit to me. I did everything people recommend to organize my life and keep it going, but...I still kept feeling like I was dragging my way through the '60s TV version of soul-sucking quicksand. And I had taken several organizing courses for writers just that spring!

Nothing helped. I couldn't think of ideas outside of the work-in-progress. No short story notions. Even contemplating prompts made me flinch. I couldn't write blogs beyond the weekly writing accountability posts I had been forcing myself to do. Keeping up with certain tasks became really difficult. I didn't do any quilting or embroidery work. TV--which is something I'm not wild about to begin with--just didn't appeal. I couldn't make any headway with promoting my work because no matter what I did, nothing seemed to happen to get more sales--which fed into a continuing sensation of why am I doing this? Add to that getting cut in the first round of an indie writer contest with one of the nastiest four star reviews I've ever received, from a reviewer who openly admitted that this particular story's soft magic system was a style they did not enjoy, and...that killed any notion of me writing further stories in that world.

Worst of all, I couldn't find much enjoyment in reading--and I am one of those voracious readers who devours books eagerly. Now some of that is due to a developing cataract, but I also just. couldn't. do. it.

I was irritable, annoyed at the world, and the only bright spot besides the work-in-progress was working with Marker. Last winter was a training struggle for us, but I'll write about our current training status in another blog.

Yeah, there were things happening around me in real life that made the burnout worse. Politics. Aging stuff and dealing with long-term planning. Decisions to be made there. A wakeup call on the health front--not me, fortunately, but the spouse. Downsizing decisions. Books to sell--and absolutely nothing was moving, including things that normally sold well such as the fantasy series. On top of that, Substack appeared to be on the brink of imploding, I was losing my newsletter program (TinyLetter), and there were major changes happening on the email newsletter front (DMARC, DKIP, etc etc etc) as well as the Substack political mess. I bounced between several platforms before I found one that seemed to work, only to see my subscription numbers collapse. I couldn't justify the expense of the top-rated programs based on my numbers.

What a mess.

Solving this issue didn't happen very quickly. It's fortunate that I do not depend upon my writing income to survive, because otherwise I would have been screwed over big time. It's taken nearly a year to pull myself out of this mess and I'm not entirely sure it's completely gone.

But. I started thinking about things late last spring. The first thing I realized is that I've turned out a LOT of work during the pandemic and following social isolation. The four books of the Martiniere Legacy. Beating the Apocalypse. The three books of People of the Martiniere Legacy. Federation Cowboy. The A Different Life duology. Becoming Solo. Bearing Witness. The Cost of Power trilogy. Something like sixteen works of novella-length or longer, since the fall of 2020. At times I was juggling a Kindle Vella serial, a Substack serial, and another long form writing project, while telling myself that yes, I could multitask. Oh, and I also released a short story collection, Fabulist and Fantastical Worlds.

Then I recognized the phenomenon...my ability to create was falling into the same sort of brain fade that I and other teachers experienced on a yearly basis with regard to reading. I had the great good fortune to work with experienced, long-term teachers who loved reading and creative pursuits. We even had a small exchange library in the staff room. One of the subjects that sticks in my mind from our lunchroom discussions was how the ability to read complex books faded over the course of the school year. At the beginning of the school year, complex books weren't just easy to read, they were fun. As the year progressed, it became harder and harder to focus on those books, until at the end of the school year, our preference was for lighter reads. The ability to read improved over the summer, just in time for the cycle to start all over again.

I realized that the structures I had started to create for myself at the end of 2022 into 2023 just weren't working, in part because they were, bluntly, a time suck. Yeah, it was great to have an executive meeting with myself every week and use that to plan the week ahead--but writing it up as well as taking the time to think about it ended up being a chore. I wasn't getting stuff done because it was too overwhelming and in all the push to get stuff done I wasn't recharging myself.

So. I stopped flogging myself with the weekly executive meetings. I gave myself permission to stop writing anything unless I really wanted to do it, with the exception of editorial work on the work-in-progress. I kept putting off attack ideas. I looked at what was bugging me about my office--primarily rampant disorganization that made me tired every time I looked at it--and asked myself what was missing. As it turned out, I needed a place to sort paper and write by hand comfortably. I pushed out my expectations for the next big project. I looked at why I wasn't blogging and realized I needed that little endorphin rush from Substack feedback for my blogs instead of the black hole of nothingness that happened elsewhere.

I gave myself space.

Am I back? Not entirely. But I have ideas for several blogs, some of which require research and planning. I've finished a short story draft and will be revising it next week. I have a half-finished concept that I'll be poking at for the next few months which mixes already-written work with new additions. I need to revamp my website and make it leaner, more effective. All sorts of little, niggling things that need to be simplified that I now have time to do. I'm not planning to start the next big project for a couple of months, depending on some things lying ahead.

At the very least, I feel like I'm getting away from that dire swamp. I'm not completely clear of the burnout--but I'm reading again. Ideas are stirring.

I guess that's enough.

Sigh. This is where I put in the plug for the new release and a plug for the Fund for Horse Cookies. Push the buttons below!

Link for The Cost of Power trilogy

Buy the horses some Cookies!