Burnout

Or When Your Creative Energy is Sucked Up by Useless Tasks

In this issue:

• Note from Shelley

• Art: Flower by K.C. Brote

• December Pappus: Burnout, or When Your Creative Energy is Sucked up by Useless Tasks

• Journal Prompt

• Publishing News

Note from Shelley

Dear Loyal Reader:

In the midst of all the decorating and shopping and wrapping and parties, the baking of gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies and date-balls and cranberry bread, the candles and carols and Hallmark movies, I hope you find some peaceful moments of quiet contemplation and joy.

Has anyone else been listening to classical Christmas music on the sly since Halloween?

I love listening to the old hymns, carols, and choral music in the fall & winter season. New age arrangements with mandolins and flutes and bells also do something magical to my blood pressure. I’ve also enjoyed baking this year. I have a ball of sugar cookie dough in the ‘fridge, and tomorrow I’ll be putting together quiche lorraine, an apple pie, and a soup.

Have you found some good books to read this month? I have to tell you about this amazing novel, THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powell. This Pulitzer winner drew me in with beautiful writing, fascinating characters whose lives ended up intertwining, mimicking the way the trees and fungi and other plants of a mature forest twine and communicate and create a living, breathing entity. This is not a short novel. It’s complex. The writing isn’t simple, but it’s clear and lovely. For anyone concerned at all about the health of the planet and living things, including ourselves, this one will move you.

In this issue, I’m sharing my thoughts on burnout because, well, that’s how I’m feeling right now. Being a creative person comes with some drawbacks. One of them is wanting to share your creations with other people and finding it difficult. Some say it’s always been this way, and that’s probably true, to some extent. But I feel as if we’ve been sucked into reliance on social media platforms.

If you are looking for a journal prompt, there’s one here. And then a bit of publishing news.

I am so grateful for your support, your encouragement, your willingness to read this newsletter every month. I’d love a note back now and again. Let me know what you are doing and thinking!

Mostly, I wish you a wondrous Christmas and Solstice and Winter Holiday season. Only a few more days and the light gets brighter and longer in our days again. And next time I write to you, it will be from the other side of the globe. Guam, here we come!

Cheers!

Shelley

Art

This month’s art is by K.C. Brote. Follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/kcbrote/ and see all her current pieces

December Pappus

Burnout, or When When Your Creative Energy is Sucked up by Useless Tasks

"Burnout" is about a sense of futility, a feeling that whatever it is you are doing doesn't matter. Doesn't move the needle. Doesn’t change a thing.

I'm burned out. Besides working on my novels and short stories, I'm writing essays on a cooperative blog twice a month (for the exposure, not cash). I'm sharing thoughts and photos and funny comments on several platforms every day (for the exposure, what little there is of it.). I’m making short videos for reels and doing the latest #booksky challenge. I’m doing all this in hopes of finding and growing an audience among people already totally overwhelmed by the noise online, who have little more attention capacity, who just can’t anymore.

It feels like jogging in place.

Yes, this is self-inflicted pain. I chose to be a writer. I chose to use social media to promote my work, my goals, my dreams, my publishing journey. Keeping up with the times felt important.

Now I think moving past the times is essential.

Dear reader, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If that’s the case, when it comes to social media promotion, I am definitively insane. Less and less, the promotion side of the career appeals to me or even seems effective. The air is stagnant on the platforms. Except for this newsletter. With Pink Dandelions there’s a fresh whiff of potential on the currents.

I'm thinking about 90% quiet-quitting the online promotion side of my writing career. I’ll do 10% just to keep a presence on the platforms, but otherwise I aim for this newsletter to become my primary means of engagement with my readers.

“But how else do you get the word out about your books?” someone might ask. “Isn’t your writing worth the effort? The sacrifice of time on the platforms? The lost focus? The frustration and angst?” And, “Can you even be a writer if you refuse to create and nurture a social media presence?”

Good questions, all. This move might indeed be the end of my professional writing career. Giving up online promotion could mean I lose my right to be a published novelist in today’s increasingly online world.

My response to that: So what?

Writing is extremely important to me. I’ll keep doing it, but does the world REALLY need another published book? According to one source, upwards of 4 million books (including indies) were published last year. If I never publish another book again, the world will be okay. There will be plenty of books to read. Readers won’t go hungry. All the loss will be on my end, and I might be willing to risk it.

Yes, I will be giving up a long-held dream, but sometimes you have to ask yourself if the negative consequences of what you are doing outweigh the benefits.

Confession: I don’t think social media is good for us, as human beings, in a complicated world.

Confession: I hope the Tik Tok ban goes through.

Confession: I hope the rest of them–all the big social media platforms–tumble after it, one by one.

Of course I'd love to get my stories and books into the hands of all the readers who would truly enjoy them, but I don’t want to enrich Big Tech in the process. I also don’t think my posting all the time helps me reach that goal. I'm tired of couching my words so the algorithm doesn't bury a post. I'm tired of struggling against the 'bots. I’m sick to death of “hello dear” guys (who are probably also bots), trying to get me to “please send them a message so we can be friends.” Pay to play. Keep it short and silly. Move in your videos. GIFs are dead. Boost this post to reach 114 more people. Yuck!

Every day, I miss seeing my friends’ posts while being shown weird meme pages and bot-run misogyny streams. I admit I like the AI driven home decor pages, the artist pages, and some inspirational quotation collections, but is that a reason to stay online for hours a day? Plus, let’s face it, that’s also my competition for eyeballs and attention, right?

It’s a scam pool we’re swimming in. We are ALL tired of treading this water, aren't we?

I'm sure there are some right about now who are thinking, "Good! I hope more people like you quit because that leaves more space for me, me, ME!"

Okay. Fine. You do you.

I’m not totally giving up. I’ll go back to some old-fashioned tactics. I’ll find some magazines who might publish my short stories. I’ll send out my newsletter and gather new readers here and there, one at a time. Maybe I’ll try to book more in-person events. Podcasts are fun, like old-time radio programs, and are geared toward long-form and complexity and nuance, as are Substack newsletters. I’ll slowly but surely wean myself off the platforms.

And what if my readers don’t follow me?

I’ll be sad, but that’s a chance I guess I’m willing to take.

Journal Prompt

Describe a time you experienced burnout, fatigue, or just plain old stress. What do you think were the underlying causes. Perfectionism? Comparison to others? Overwork? Trying to do too much or fear of missing out? Now describe what it would be like to do nothing “productive” for an entire day. How would that feel? How would you spend your time? How can you incorporate more of that into your daily schedule?

Publishing News

The Bookish Hour podcast with Sarah E. Burr and J.C. Kenney hosted me for an hour-long interview. If you missed it, you can catch it here.

I wrote about Creative Longings on the Type M for Murder blog. https://typem4murder.blogspot.com/2024/12/creative-longings.html

I also wrote about the publishing industry, again on the Type M for Murder blog.

https://typem4murder.blogspot.com/2024/11/black-friday-thoughts.html

Olivia Lively and Other Books

I do not have a novel contract for 2025. The next two Olivia Lively’s are but glimmers in my head. I am still working on my Rosalie rewrite plus a couple of short stories. I submitted one short story to a magazine, but that can take 4-6 months for a reply. Maybe I’ll have news about that in June.

That’s it for December. Thanks again for reading! Please encourage others to sign up for the newsletter if they are interested in keeping up with my Guam journey and my writing.