This year has been awful. I will not recap the entire series of unfortunate events that was the beginning of the year, but it left me completely messed up emotionally and mentally unmoored. For most of the year, I tried to give myself room to breathe and recover because I had become incredibly emotionally brittle. I ended up on the edge of tears several times a day and overwhelmed regularly until late summer when my brain finally seemed to decompress. While I’m always anxious, this was far worse than what I was accustomed to. It felt like the threshold for my anxiety was so much lower than normal, and when that happens, I get KO-ed by anything stressful and need extra time to recover. After Katie’s last post-radiation check-up at the beginning of the month, things finally feel stable again. That brittle feeling has, for the most part, gone away. The problem is that now I have to get myself back on track.
When I was planning out 2026, I had such high hopes that I want to laugh at now because little did I know how rough the beginning of this year would be. My original 2026 plans were as follows:
- Publish The Reanimator’s Fate (TRM #4) in late January- DONE on time
- Publish “An Unexpected Christmas” by March- DONE but in July
- Publish the F&F rewrite in summer- Current WIP, no release date yet
- Publish the audiobook of The Reanimator’s Fate in summer- DONE and on time
- Write 3-4 more short stories and publish the Reanimator short story collection in the fall- Haven’t touched it
- Start working on Joe and Ansley’s book in winter- it’s marinating but definitely will not be at the forefront until I finish other stuff
I stare at this list and feel mildly exhausted. On one hand, I think I was overly ambitious. On the other, it’s still doable, just not on this timeline. I plan to still follow the order I set out here, but I’m going to take into consideration that a) I’m getting back into working full throttle b) every book I set out to write ends up longer than I initially planned.
Part of why Flowers & Flourishing is taking so long to write is because when I said I was expanding it, I was expanding it. Scenes that took one page in the original draft are now taking five in the new one because I’m rearranging things and fleshing out the details in a way I didn’t with the original version. It won’t be five times as long as the original freebie story, but it’s definitely going to be at least twice as long, and things are shifting in terms of the storyline. Same general idea but more characterization and conflict, especially internal conflict.
For most of the year, I haven’t felt proud of my writing output at all because most of the time it’s been like pulling teeth. The story itself isn’t coming slow, but my ability to have ass-in-chair time with focus has been elusive. Most of that was stress early on. Now, it’s floppy writing muscles. With the semester starting in September and Katie finishing her last oncology appointment for a while (all clear, yay!), I finally feel like I can finally get back into writing consistently. I don’t want to push myself to the point of burning out again, but I do want to push myself just enough to get back into consistency and having monthly goals. If I can finish the rewrite of Flowers & Flourishing over the next few months, I’ll be very happy. If I can do more than that, I’ll be ecstatic.
My game plan over the next few days is solidify my goals for October, November, and December (aka Q4). Those goals need to be realistic but not permissive because if I make them too low, I’ll get sloppy and procrastinate, and if they’re too difficult, I’ll feel bad about myself and go into panic-paralysis when I fall behind. It’s a delicate balance after dealing with burnout. In the meantime, I’ve been watching videos from Sarra Cannon’s HeartBreathings channel on Youtube, where she talks about writing and staying organized. Her videos always leave me feeling jazzed to get started on my projects. I’ve found that when I listen to videos from other authors who are excited to write or teach, I feel more energized and excited to do the same. I have community, but I don’t tend to talk to people one-on-one about things. Watching someone else struggle and still get shit done helps. Logically, I know that, but when I’m flopping around and my friends are also flopping around, sometimes I need that positive influence.
My hope is that I can start getting my shit together during these last few days of September, so I can build motivation and good habits going into October. I may not be successful, but I’m going to do my damnedest to stay on track or get back on track if I lose my way. I will report back at the end of October, so wish my luck on that.
