July 20, 2022
Week 93
Emotional State: Unbalanced
Books
I’ve been editing for what feels like decades. Every sentence revised, scenes smashed together or removed. It’s been a long slog of reworking content to make it better. And it is better, but when you add multiple jobs and not a lot of free time, what you get is drudgery.
Or at least that’s what it feels like.
I’m still editing my cozy mystery, while simultaneously posting new episodes every week, which gets an additional edit and honestly, I’m tired and a bit bored with it all. It just feels like every day is a marathon and I can’t find the joy in the process. I know, I know – take a break to avoid burnout.
The problem is that when my break is over, I’m right back in the slog of editing again. I did it to myself. That’s the sad part. I scheduled my year, got aggressive with my goals, wrote a ton, and all that writing needs reworking. It didn’t help that Book 2 of my urban fantasy series took way too long to revise because I struggled with the story.
And the sad part is that I have loads more of editing to do with it once my editor finishes so that I can incorporate their changes and decide how much of my beta readers’ comments I should follow. So, yet another month (months!) of editing on my plate with no new projects ahead of me.
Why? Because if I write anything new I’m going to have, you guessed it, edit as well.
My problem isn’t the writing, or the marketing, or even the editing, but it’s about balance. I can’t edit other writers’ work and have anything left over for my own work, even if I do my stuff first thing in the morning.
I’ve been off social media for a few days because I have nothing to say. I’m not motivated to interact and I just don’t see the point when I won’t see much movement in my books until more of them are published. But if I want to publish them, I’m going to have – you guessed it – edit them.
I should be working on my book covers, but I can’t even get into that right now because I’ve lost of all mojo for it. I don’t know how to get it back. I don’t know how to find that sweet, creative energy that lifts me up and pushes me forward.
It probably doesn’t help that it’s hotter than an oven outside. There’s something about overwhelming heat that just saps all motivation right out of you.
So now what I’ve got to do is get through my backlog and reformulate my strategy so that I balance writing – editing – writing – editing to create that balance that is sorely lacking in my life.
I don’t even want to be writing this blog right now, but here I am, pushing through and fighting that feeling, you know the one, where it’s almost painful to keep going but you push through because you have no other choice.
Enough about me (I’m already bored with talking about me).
How are you doing? Finding that balance, alright?
I sure hope so, because someone needs to balance out my energy. And it sure as heck isn’t going to be me.