Let's talk about burnout

I think I'm going through a metamorphosis and I'm still inside the chrysalis

I started writing a long overdue email to my newsletter list today. I wanted to get real and have an honest and vulnerable conversation. I owed it to them after all since I promised I’d keep in touch every month, and also have another book out this year. They haven’t heard from me since July. And no, there is no new book out. I failed miserably at both, and wanted to let them know I was sorry. Once I started telling the story though, I couldn’t stop. It’s way too much for a newsletter update and frankly maybe more than they want to know about me anyway. So I’m coming over here to a SubStack account I set up months ago with big plans that I also didn’t follow through on, to get my thoughts about burn out … out.

So …

Hi there. If you popped over from the newsletter, hi again. Let’s get back to it.

You might not remember me.

In fact, I might not remember me either!

You last heard from me back in July and I had been trying diligently to keep in touch with you every month until that point. But the unraveling had started months before (maybe longer) and then I kind of crashed. I had to face a very inconvenient truth: that was I was completely burnt out. So much so that the thought of even writing you an email was too much to cope with. And what would I say? That I still don't have a new book for you yet? Just thousands of words of gibberish. I felt guilt and anger at myself.  Disappointed in myself too. I still do, but I'm learning to give myself a bit of grace for the events over the last few years that rocked my confidence and contributed to where I found myself. I even had an important conversation about whether I even wanted to be a writer anymore. (The answer was, thankfully yes ... but it was a close call).   

When I started out ten years ago, it all seemed so simple and easy. Reaching new readers was easy too. Easier, anyway. A new book sold the old one. But most importantly back then, I had confidence in who I was as a writer, confidence in what I wrote, and confidence in how I wrote.

I barely recognize that person anymore.  

Putting myself out there became more and more terrifying. Why would you even want to hear from me? And seeing the way the book community (mainly booktok, I suppose) suddenly converges in rabid groups against writers whether over legitimate, accidental, or even perceived missteps, is terrifying. I always used say that putting your art out there into the world for the public to judge was akin to walking around naked at a fair. Keri Ann from my first book Eversea said those exact words when her best friend encouraged her to put her art into the world. But I have never felt it more keenly than this year.  For a while, I thought I just needed help. If I could get more organized, the words would come back. And maybe the words would make sense like they used to, not come in flashes and scenes and have no coherent structure. The confidence would come back even. If I had an assistant maybe, or if my agent emailed me back occasionally to a simple question, I'd feel less panicked and overwhelmed by the 'woulda, shoulda, couldas', and what the hell is happening to my career.

But in the end what I had to do, was ... nothing.

N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

But certain types of nothing. I needed to simply enjoy things again, and become an observer of life and life's idiosyncrasies again. I needed to listen to people, and stories, and investigate the world around me.

Take my shoes off.

Get outside.

Take a nap. 

And also to get rid of things not serving me.  <~ this was a big one and I’ll have to come back to it at some point, but not today. I needed some type of personal metamorphosis.

I meditated, listened to inspiring podcasts, read ‘self-help’ books, did an 'Overcoming Writer's Resistance Course'. The course, by writing coach Monica Hay, was amazing to understand what I had been going through mentally. Maybe for the feelings and struggle to just be validated, I guess. But then, an author I had previously admired started a rabid Facebook pile-on against the coach about the value and content of the course that completely undermined the very real help I got out of it and made me feel stupid for needing it, and further underscored how scary it is to put your work out into the world no matter who you are. It’s amazing when you’ve lost confidence in something that even a small step forward can get knocked back so easily. That author knocked the course, not me, but yet I felt the attack just the same. (And let’s be clear, it’s not like I’m writing the next great American novel, I just want to write a fun, sexy, romantic book, for fuck’s sake <~ See, already devaluing myself and my words again. It’s a process).

Finally, I started very, very small.  Sometimes just two minutes a day.  But always showing up in front of my story. I observed what my brain was doing (opening the equivalent of a thousand tabs on a browser to try and distract me). I gave myself permission to just play. Permission to work in my current work-in-progress, or to sometimes pick another story I hadn’t opened in a while or had abandoned. I gave myself permission to talk to the characters; to assure them I didn't need them to come out fully formed, but that I just wanted to get to know them a little.  No pressure! I’d try putting them in a different situation here and there. I put my female main character at a high top with her three best girlfriends after a bad day at work, and set a timer to free write how how they interacted. Was she the calm one, the sassy one, the funny one? Bottom line? I started to work toward enjoying the process of writing fiction again, and to stop being so focused on the missing product (a book that should, but does not, exist yet).

And I'm happy to tell you that while still fragile, I am writing again. And enjoying it. And look! Here I am writing to you! I'll take these wins however they come.  Maybe the book will be written in 300 words a day average. But it will get written. I’m finally sure of that.

If you are one of my readers, sorry it took so long. It’s on its way.

If you are a writer and are going through the same, I caution you not to “try to write through it”. Take a moment. Take stock. I wish I’d given myself permission to do that sooner. I could go back three years and see where it all started to go pear-shaped! Listen to the Magic Lessons podcast by Elizabeth Gilbert. Look up how to do “future pacing” meditations by certified neurolinguistic programming professionals. Simply meditate with short guided mediations to give your brain’s churn a chance to slow the fuck down. (Especially at 3 am). I’ve used Chopra App, Calm, Asana, Oura, and YouTube. Try not to compare your career to other authors. It sounds so obvious but so easy to to forget: we are all on our own journey, with a unique set of circumstances. You are literally trying to compare apples to oranges. You’d never do it it in another situation or to a friend. Don’t do it to yourself. This does not serve you.

If you can afford a few sessions, maybe hire an executive coach who can help you organize your thoughts and talk through some of your negative self-talk. If they are Clifton certified, maybe understanding your Clifton strengths will help you make sense of what your brain is doing. I highly recommend coach Becca Syme for this - she told me two years ago I was heading toward burnout and gave me some key insights which I promptly ignored and look where that got me. Which leads me to to my next point, which is many of us think burnout isn’t real. I mean sure, it’s a thing, but not for me. But it is very, very real. Call it professional depression if you like, it has a similar profile at times, but accept that it is a real thing. Whether you are an artist, or even an executive being churned through soul-sucking roles at a bottomline-focused behemoth of a business with a fat salary and no personal reward, BURNOUT IS REAL.

And the good news is, there’s a way out. Spin your chrysalis of self-care and get in it quickly. The faster you do, the faster you’ll emerge. I’m not quite out of my chrysalis yet, and taking quick stock, I think I might be emerging as a underwhelming grey moth and not a butterfly, but I’ll take it.