Burnout: a saga
- aestengl
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
At the time of penning this blog post, I just (literally minutes ago) set a new personal record: I wrote two complete manuscripts in 3 months.
These manuscripts are both 100K-plus words long.
And while they both will need light edits and thorough proof reads, they are POLISHED stories that won’t change in any significant way during the editing process. Each book took 5 work weeks to complete. I have never written this much in this short of a time frame. Certainly not this much polished work! So I’m having a little celebration.
But this is about much more than meeting a couple of tight deadlines . . .
You see, there’s another record I’m celebrating: this is the first time since I gave birth to my twins that I’ve written more than three books in a single year. My last few years have looked like this:
2021 - Seven Books Written
Stolen Mage Bride (novella)
(And I had the twins right in between Entranced and Entangled.)
2022 - Three Books Written
2023 - Three Books Written
2024 - Two Books Written
(And because my second 2024 manuscript was for Trad and wouldn’t come out for another year, I only had ONE book published in 2024.)
So . . . yeah. You can see how there’s a bit of a drop-off post twins.
Not too stark at first . . . but what these numbers don’t reflect is the steady decline into burnout I was experiencing behind the scenes. I went from super-charged and full of creativity during my twin pregnancy and immediately post twins, to starting to feel cracks around the time of drafting Ensorcelled . . .
By the time I was writing Vow of the Shadow King, I described my writing process to my husband as “trying to dig through concrete with my fingernails.”
It was BAD.
And it continued to get worse over the next several years.
Don’t get me wrong . . . I absolutely LOVED the books I was writing. But the actual process of writing became progressively more miserable. For a number of reasons, some of which I will list here:
- I was now the mother of four
- Including baby twins
- And their brother, only 1 year older
- I was now the sole income provider/breadwinner
- My body was destroyed by twin pregnancy and required massive surgery to fix
- The massive surgery was, in and of itself, EXCRUTIATING
- Trauma from extended family issues
- Moving house
Basically, by the time 2024 rolled around, I was a wreck. Mentally. Physically. Creatively.
Which is sad to me in retrospect, because WarBride and The Seventh Champion, the two books I wrote that year, are two of the most fun and delightful projects I’ve ever written. I’m incredibly proud of them . . . but I hate looking back on the actual process of WRITING them, because I was in such deep dysregulation.
When I finished The Seventh Champion, I tried to dive right back into writing HeartTorn, the second book in the WarBride series . . . and finally hit the burnout wall. HARD.
As in, I literally could not write.
I couldn’t write an email.
I couldn’t write a text.
I couldn’t write a journal entry.
I could barely make myself write a grocery list.
The absolute trauma symptoms I experienced at the mere prospect of putting words on a page . . . I cannot even BEGIN to describe it. It was bewildering. And terrifying. (This is my profession, after all, and I am still the primary breadwinner.)
Suddenly I couldn’t do THE ONE THING I’ve always been able to depend on being able to do: Write Stories.
So yeah. Late 2024 was not a good time for me.
Thank God for Becca Syme and The QuitCast. Seriously, I cannot sing the praises of this woman and the resources she has to offer indie authors highly enough! She has a whole series on burnout—what it is, what causes it, and what to do when you find yourself in the midst of it.
I listened AVIDLY.
I applied EVERYTHING.
I spent three months in ACTIVE RECOVERY MODE. Which was not easy. I am (surprise, surprise) something of a workaholic. But Burnout Recovery requires a whole lot of NOT WORKING.
Basically, it’s like . . . if you were an athlete and you broke your leg, you have to let it heal before you can get back to playing sportsball, right?
My (creative writing) leg was broken. Forcing myself to write wasn’t going to let the (creative) bone heal. I had to stop. Completely.
Honestly, I hardly knew what to do with myself. After SCRUBBING my house within an inch of its life from top to bottom, I settled into binge watching episodes of the old sitcom, Frasier, while coloring pictures of woodland creatures having tea parties. (I also adopted a cat . . . and named him “Frasier,” in honor.)
About a month and a half into this, however, I had the first nigglings of an idea. I actually opened my computer and wrote it down and . . . well, I’ll tell you more about that some other time. (It’s amazing, though, and I can’t wait to share!)
I wasn’t ready to actually write yet. Not for work. But I was starting to feel like I could maybe . . . play a little bit. Experiment with storytelling in its most basic, fun, just-for-me form.
Anyway, long story short . . . Christmas happened, all the kids were home, I was far too busy to worry about Burnout things. But when the kids all went back to school, I decided it was time to try again.
Here’s how that went.
2025 - Four Books Written
UNTITLED SEQUEL (sequel to The Seventh Champion for Ace)
Yup. You’re seeing that correctly.
I'm starting to get my writing pace back. My energy, my excitement, my verve, my joi de vivre.
And this doesn’t even BEGIN to reflect the other stories which have been bursting to life in my brain ever since I allowed myself that time to recover. Last I tallied them up, I’ve got TWENTY-FIVE different books in various stages of development, ALL of which I am absolutely rabid to start writing, like, now.
Of course, there is a great deal more behind-the-scenes work involved here. I’m planning to write up two more posts: one about the writing process changes I made to streamline my process and avoid burnout - another about physical and lifestyle changes. Both were important and both have yielded some amazing results.
But the big difference was actually allowing myself three months of healing. Which was hard . . . and is still hard in many ways. (Indie publishing rewards consistency, and it will be a while before my indie career recovers from single publications in 2024 and 2025.)
Do I have advice to offer? I suppose I do.
First – If you suspect you’re heading toward burnout, ACT NOW to make changes. Don’t wait until you’ve actually broken your leg and are forced to let it mend.
Second – If you ARE in burnout . . . don’t punish yourself. Burnout is bad enough without self-flagellation. Do the recovery work. Give yourself some grace. (And check out all of Becca Syme's resources!)
Let me end by saying, I am SO GRATEFUL to be back in a creative place in my life once more. And I hope I won’t take it for granted again . . . and will learn to watch for the signs of burnout before they get severe.
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