Burnout

I find myself needing to take my own damn advice. I need a break from writing before I totally burn myself out.

For the last year, I've been publishing something new every single month. On the months I published something I'd previously written under my name, I still released something new under Alter Ego.

And I was doing this in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Despite all the insanity of COVID, DH and I found the perfect house. GK met his first love. A lot of good things still happened, right?

Except it's all stressful. Good stress. But still stress. Which means it causes a cascade of physical problems and exhaustion. Sheer exhaustion. Exhaustion couple with SAD (seasonal affective disorder) means despite sleeping 12-13 hours, I wake up still exhausted.

In fact, I'm so tired writing is starting to become a chore instead of a joy. And that's a major symptom of burnout.

Burnout can lead to a particularly insidious form of writer's block. One where you have plenty of ideas. You just don't want to execute them.

That doesn't mean I won't be writing. I'll finish the next Justice and 888-555-HERO novels. I'm putting together a couple of short story collections of things already written. But then I need to take a month or two off before I totally lose my mojo.

I guess what I want to tell other writers is not to keep running faster and faster on the hamster wheel of doom to the point where you lose all the joy in your art. Because yes, it is art. For me, it is an act of creation that's just as important as cooking or painting or raising children.

That stupid hamster wheel is not worth losing the things that make life wonderful. Know when to take a break.