Burnout

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Abstract

a Tweet about the same novel every hour for twelve hours in the hopes of attracting agent interest.I didn’t have to Tweet every hour. But agents who represent horror aren’t the easiest to come by, and I wanted to maximize my chances of being noticed. As Twitter won’t let you post identical Tweets and because I wanted to keep playing with the wording of the Tweets to see what, if anything, attracted agent notice, this ended up being an all-day haul for me.On top of that, I had my weekly writing commitments AND two looming contest deadlines.I gave myself a break on Thursday to tend to #PitDark and complete a story for a writing challenge. But by Friday morning, I couldn’t bear the thought of writing another word. I collapsed on the sofa and watched the Game Show Network; I tried to nap, but my brain continued chewing over queries and revisions and deadlines. I haven’t felt this burned out on writing in a long time, and I didn’t like it.<p id

Options

="10f6">So I’m going to ease up on the challenge. If I have something to say and a piece ready to go, I’ll get it up there, but I’m not going to force it, especially not if deadlines are looming. I don’t like feeling like a quitter, but that feeling I had on Friday morning of never wanting to write another word scared me a lot more.(But do I learn? Of course not. I was looking at Twitter tonight and saw information about a daily flash fiction challenge coming up in June and thought “Oh, hey, I could do th — SELF, WHAT DID WE LITERALLY JUST DECIDE ABOUT DAILY CHALLENGES THIS MONTH?” Sigh.)Although I am stepping back from the May post-a-day challenge, I’d still ❤ a recommend heart if you enjoyed this. You can find a listing of my fiction on Medium <a href="https://readmedium.com/a-handy-list-of-my-fiction-on-medium-6a77d30a330a">here</a>, and I blog occasionally over at <a href="http://nicolewillson.com/blog/">my personal website</a>.</article></body>

Burnout

Waving the White Flag

I felt like the left side of this picture by the end of last week. Source

I started the May Post-A-Day challenge with the best of intentions. Making a daily post along with my other weekly writing commitments sounded tough, but by the second week I had something of a system going. I could write a daily entry on Medium and still manage my other work.

I didn’t take into account that the third week in May was going to be crazy busy. There were two different online pitch contests I wanted to enter. While one contest was a quick “submit your pitch to an agent and wait” deal, the other one was #PitDark, a Twitter pitch party especially for novels with a dark tone or subject matter. This party allowed you to post a Tweet about the same novel every hour for twelve hours in the hopes of attracting agent interest.

I didn’t have to Tweet every hour. But agents who represent horror aren’t the easiest to come by, and I wanted to maximize my chances of being noticed. As Twitter won’t let you post identical Tweets and because I wanted to keep playing with the wording of the Tweets to see what, if anything, attracted agent notice, this ended up being an all-day haul for me.

On top of that, I had my weekly writing commitments AND two looming contest deadlines.

I gave myself a break on Thursday to tend to #PitDark and complete a story for a writing challenge. But by Friday morning, I couldn’t bear the thought of writing another word. I collapsed on the sofa and watched the Game Show Network; I tried to nap, but my brain continued chewing over queries and revisions and deadlines. I haven’t felt this burned out on writing in a long time, and I didn’t like it.

So I’m going to ease up on the challenge. If I have something to say and a piece ready to go, I’ll get it up there, but I’m not going to force it, especially not if deadlines are looming. I don’t like feeling like a quitter, but that feeling I had on Friday morning of never wanting to write another word scared me a lot more.

(But do I learn? Of course not. I was looking at Twitter tonight and saw information about a daily flash fiction challenge coming up in June and thought “Oh, hey, I could do th — SELF, WHAT DID WE LITERALLY JUST DECIDE ABOUT DAILY CHALLENGES THIS MONTH?” Sigh.)

Although I am stepping back from the May post-a-day challenge, I’d still ❤ a recommend heart if you enjoyed this. You can find a listing of my fiction on Medium here, and I blog occasionally over at my personal website.