Bluntly stated, I’ve been burnt out this month. I mentioned this briefly in my last blog post, but I want to discuss this topic a bit more because I feel that it’s important to be transparent and not to mislead my audience into thinking that I’m some unstoppable powerhouse of a writer.
Burnout is different for everyone, but some signs I really started noticing in myself were:
Exhaustion, even after a full night’s rest;
Agitation with oneself or others;
Loss of excitement toward once-enjoyable hobbies or activities;
Adoption of an apathetic, “it is what it is” attitude toward work/projects;
Self-isolation from friends and social circles.
Like I said, burnout shows up differently for everyone, so it's really important to listen to what your mind and body are telling you. What I identify as burnout might just be someone else's off day.
It wasn’t until the latter half of last week—when, for a few consecutive days, I woke up, ate breakfast and had coffee, then slept again for another couple hours—that I really faced the reality of what I was experiencing. Each day felt like a repeat of the last: I awoke with a timer ticking in the back of my head, always counting down to the evening, when it would be too late to try to accomplish anything substantial.
My natural instinct was to tell myself to toughen up and push through it. Rest could come once I made another post on Instagram, or once I reached a certain word count on my current work in progress, or once my book was published. The goalposts kept shifting further and further away.
Recently, I’ve put in some conscious efforts to actually rest. I downloaded and logged a few hours onto a cozy game called Spiritfarer, I turned off my morning alarms when I could, and I got myself out of the house if I ever started to feel chained to my computer. Excluding my journaling sessions (which I've also tried to do more of), I really haven’t written much at all this entire month. It was anxiety-inducing at the start, but “unplugging” this week has been easier due to an internet issue we’re currently dealing with at home. Maybe that’s just the universe giving me another helpful shove in the right direction—who knows?
Burnout is scary, especially as a writer who wishes to turn her passion into a full-time career, but I’m learning to accept it as part of the process. While I never want it to grow into something so debilitating that it prevents me from ever writing another word again, denying its existence won’t mitigate any harmful effects. However, I find comfort in recalling how hard I work when I’m at my strongest. The first draft of Unraveled was completed in two months; draft two came along while I was actively in school; the next five (yes, it took me eight drafts to reach a final version that I’m satisfied with) were completed between the fall of 2021 and early 2024. I figure that if I can write five drafts of a 120k-word book in just over two years, then a few weeks of rest is well-earned and warranted.
This period of rest may last a while, or I may bounce back at the start of the next month. I really couldn’t say. I also don’t have the perfect solution to overcoming burnout. Rest and separation from my writing seems to be the one good thing for me, but I know some people who catch a second wind and power through it.
So even with an overactive imagination and an endless slew of ideas, I’m pacing myself. Taking note of ideas that should be saved for a later time; following others until I hit that familiar wall that tells me I’ve ventured too far for now. I can only trust that one day, as I’m chasing another idea down the labyrinth in my head, there won’t be anymore walls that I can’t break through.
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