Burnout sucks. It hit me a couple of years ago, after my father died, and with my mother going downhill and dying over 2018/19, this year was my first since 2003 with no releases.
I don't know if this is any use, so don't think of them as suggestions, just as data points -- but two things have helped (apart from the obvious: diet, exercise, etc). The first is to try to pencil in a six month long sabbatical from writing at least once a decade. Unfortunately my last one got eaten by mum's illness, but it got me out of a patch of burnout in 2007 and it at least gave me space to recover last year. The second thing ... is carte blanche for a random creative project, on spec, unplanned, with no strings attached, no deadline, and no penalty for not delivering. Ironically, that one turned into a book, due out next December, and my NaNo project this year got me the first half of a sequel, because it's a trilogy, and it got the creative gland working again.
I've got to pause and go back to the two horribly overdue proximate-burnout novels (both tainted by their respective parental deaths) that I owe publishers, sooner or later. But I'm hoping that having the first 2/3rds of a trilogy in the can and scheduled will give me back the self-confidence to grapple with them again.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 09:48 am (UTC)I don't know if this is any use, so don't think of them as suggestions, just as data points -- but two things have helped (apart from the obvious: diet, exercise, etc). The first is to try to pencil in a six month long sabbatical from writing at least once a decade. Unfortunately my last one got eaten by mum's illness, but it got me out of a patch of burnout in 2007 and it at least gave me space to recover last year. The second thing ... is carte blanche for a random creative project, on spec, unplanned, with no strings attached, no deadline, and no penalty for not delivering. Ironically, that one turned into a book, due out next December, and my NaNo project this year got me the first half of a sequel, because it's a trilogy, and it got the creative gland working again.
I've got to pause and go back to the two horribly overdue proximate-burnout novels (both tainted by their respective parental deaths) that I owe publishers, sooner or later. But I'm hoping that having the first 2/3rds of a trilogy in the can and scheduled will give me back the self-confidence to grapple with them again.