Burnt Out & Clawing My Way Back

I’m just now coming back from a major bout of burn out that I’d been trying to overcome for months now. I thought I’d been fighting it a lot better than I actually was. My body just quit. I won a slight reprieve and my body said, “Look, I’m done. Take a beat.”

Living At Sprint Speed In a Marathon

I had to face something with the help of Makayla Beasley, a functional nutritionist, and my therapist. I push myself really hard and I don’t allow myself the grace to fail unless I’m using that failure as a means to succeed. You can’t succeed all the time and I know that. That was a hard lesson I’d had to teach myself because, growing up, I’d been taught that failure had to be avoided at all cost.

That lesson cost me dearly. I got a lot of stuff done, don’t get me wrong, and that was great. But I ran myself thin to get here.

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What Burnout Looks Like

I struggle to get out of bed.

I have no idea what to do with myself when I have nothing to do.

I feel like have no value, which removed energy from everything I try.

I can’t write because there’s nothing left.

I can’t create because there’s nothing to draw from.

I’m faking a smile with every interaction.

I feel transparent and nonexistent and without structure.

The part of me that has the greatest value to those around me is something I need to claim for myself. I find solutions, and if I can’t find them, I create them. It’s time I did that for myself.

Digging Myself Out

This past week, SistaWitch and I have been working together and reconnecting, which has had a huge and positive impact. We’re cleaning out the negativity in our spaces and adding nurturing change - we’re putting plants everywhere.

She went out and harvested a bunch of things from our backyard. I wasn’t quite ready to help her. I had enough energy to stand there and say, “That’s great.”

I’m giving myself the grace to do that. Instead of dropping everything to help, I’m allowing myself to say, “You did great,” and not throw myself into helping. Which, apparently, was off-putting. I thought I was just helping, and I wasn’t.

I’m giving myself time to read, or if I need to, to nap. I have read four books so far from start to finish. I haven’t done that in years. I’ve skimmed through books. I’ve studied them for their Craft, looking at their voices, character development, setting deployment, and structure. But to actually sit down and lose myself in a book? It’s been… decades almost.

I’m listening to books as I bake or cook. That’s filling a couple of buckets.

And I’m listening to books as I crochet. I love to crochet and I love listening/reading. So, this is fantastic.

I’m getting my hands in dirt more often. SistaWitch and I have plans to grow things throughout the winter. I’m a wood witch and she’s a water witch. It’s turning out to be amazing.

One thing I’m doing, however frustrating it may be, is not pushing myself on writing. I’m writing scenes that flow with minimal energy. I’m not pushing through low production days.

Projects

This means I’m working on multiple books at a time. It also means that these stories will be closer to the root of who I am, which… just doesn’t sell well. The last time I did this, I wrote three series that flopped. And I mean flopped. But I’ve been writing fiction meant to sell well, and it’s not. So, it’s time to go back to the basics and, you know what? I’ve learned a lot since then. My writing’s a little better now. I’ve experienced so much more stuff since then. Maybe something I write will relate to something you’re experiencing and we’ll connect. Being blunt, my writing had potential, but wasn’t really that awesome. I mean, it’s still got room to grow.

I am still a relator, which means I work best when I’m creating things people connect with. But… I think it’s time I created stuff I connected with again.

So with that said, I’m going back to the drawing board with Villains. It’s still happening, but the way I want to write it, not the way I know it’ll sell, which means I’m pushing a few envelopes. Maybe not as much as I used to, but it’s still a little outside the norm.

I’m also writing a story that has absolutely no plot. It’s just me building worlds. And I love it. You probably won’t like it. You probably will not understand why it even exists, but it’s me searching and following my feet as I recreate the worlds I’d once built for people who are no longer in my life.

And I’m writing some Dreamland short stories because when I’m down and depressed, Dreamland is the place I run to first.

I’m not promising there’ll be new chapters every week. There might not be. But it’s what I’m working on until I can regain the consistency.