Hello, burnout, my old friend…

My grrl, looking gormless and stalwart. She is a great regulator for autisti-mom.

Life in general

I started to see signs of recovery early in the month. The first was this: the revenge procrastination started to ease up. For the last couple of weeks in September, I couldn’t get to bed earlier than 1 am. Some days, it was more like 2 am.

Slowly, it started to shift. 12:45 am, 12:30 am, 12 am, and finally 11:30 pm. The progression wasn’t even, though. I slipped for a few days, popping back up to midnight, got back on track for a few days, and then had a couple of super-late nights. Mid-month, I was back, more or less, to a consistent midnight bedtime.

Things at work are starting to sort themselves out. We’re making progress on the one, time-sensitive project and a few decisions have been made that will make things a bit easier. But I still feel like I’m failing my team most days.

I’ve been taking time off when I feel overwhelmed, and it’s been helping, but I still feel guilty. A lifetime of meeting expectations at cost to myself isn’t easy to shake. By thanksgiving weekend, I started to feel a little better.

Only to slip back down into the well again.

Mom took a tumble on the 28^th. She’s okay, though bruised. Phil and I opted to call for an ambulance again because we were concerned that our untrained efforts to help her get up would only result in further injury. But all is well.

The month in writing

I wrote and revised a couple of poems and submitted them to a journal as a way of trying to gently get back into writing mode.

Rejections on my poetry submissions continued to roll in. It’s part of the writing life, but they still sting.

With Reality Bomb, I started to journal/freewrite my way through the climactic chapter. Having roughly mapped it out, I let the words percolate for a bit. I decided to focus on self-care for Thanksgiving weekend. Then I started looking at revisions on a few key scenes.

It’s a pleasant surprise when you read something you’ve written, and you’re not disgusted by it.

Spot revisions turned into a reread. It refreshed a lot of the revisions I’d already done and that I’d forgotten about (!) Not necessarily a good sign, but it means I have some distance from the earlier part of the novel.

On October 3^rd, I received a lovely request from a fellow Sudbury author to be her mentor…if her funding application was successful. Unfortunately, her funding application wasn’t successful. I briefly considered giving it a go anyway, but before I acted on the impulse, I sat back and thought about it. I’m not really in a place yet where I think I can be helpful. I need to recover from this burnout first, finish RB, and then I can consider other opportunities.

On the 16^th, I received notification that my submission to Pulp Literature’s First Page Cage had made the longlist (!) I honestly didn’t expect to make the finals. The opening of Reality Bomb is kind of quiet 🙂 I was just happy to have made the first cut!

As expected, I didn’t even make the quarter finals. But I received feedback that I can hopefully use to improve the opening.

Then, on the 19^th, I received more information about the story accepted for an anthology last year. I hope to be able to share some good news about that soonish.

And on the 22^nd, I received another acceptance for a short story I submitted to another anthology in the spring! More news to come once things are formalized.

One of the organizers for the Jabbawong Storytelling Festival in Kagawong reached out to me on the 23^rd. There in the early stages of organizing 2025’s festival, but they’d like me to be part of their lineup. So honoured. And excited.

For reasons, some personal, like my burnout, others professional, like the controversies they continue to struggle with, I have decided not to NaNo this year in any form. I track my writing regardless and have come to see the event as more of a burden than a fun challenge.

Filling the well

The new vine moon in Libra was on the 2^nd. Watched the annular solar eclipse in South America via Time & Date.

There was a period where the aurora borealis was supposed to be visible, but not here in town. Too much light pollution. There was also comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, but cloud cover and again, light pollution, prevented a sighting here.

The full hunter’s moon in Aries was on the 17^th. While I wasn’t able to get a good picture the night of, I nabbed a lovely one the morning after.

And, of course, Samhain, my birthday, was on the 31^st.

In the wake of the last few months, I tried to cut back on creative obligations.

“The delivery of information in fiction,” the last of the Your Personal Odyssey workshops I signed up for, presented by Carrie Vaughn, was on the 6^th. Really good information about how to balance showing and telling, particularly at the beginning of a story.

On the 12^th was The FOLD Academy’s “Energy is currency: Eight ways to create a more sustainable writing career” with Chelene Knight. Unfortunately, I missed it and will have to wait for the webinar to be posted on their YouTube channel. I did subscribe to Chelene’s podcast though. The webinar was posted on the 18^th. Last month, Chelene did a similar webinar for The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) and I really enjoy her philosophy about living a balanced creative life.

“Dealing with the writer demons” with Tiffany Yates Martin was on the 13^th. Very good. Tiffany has her new book out, The Intuitive Writer (another on for the TBR), and this was a co-opt of Jane Friedman’s Sunday Sermon in celebration of the release.

I signed up for a Jane Friedman webinar, “Mastering Trauma Scenes to Improve your Memoir” with Lisa Cooper Ellison on the 16^th. Because it was during the day, I watched the replay. It was about how to write about your trauma in a way that respects both yourself and your readers. Very good.

In non-writerly events, I started up Finnish class again on Oct 7^th. The classes run for eight weeks and will continue through next month. The news is this: I’ve improved! I can actually say a few things in Finnish from memory that are contextually correct in conversation! The ding of achievement has been heard 🙂 Now to work on my pronunciation.

I also attended my support group meeting on the 9^th. The topic this month: Abilities vs. expectations. Something I’m struggling with right now.

I had a lovely massage on Oct 2^nd. Just the things after two days of back to back to back meetings that kind of drove me crazy.

My semi-annual dental cleaning and checkup was on the 8^th. No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep the stains from accumulating around my permanent retainer.

Then, on the 17^th, I got my flu and covid vaccine combo, one in each shoulder. And it really hurt this time. Two days of shoulder pain bad enough I had to medicate and a day of feeling crap.

Fortunately, I felt better after those two days of misery.

Back in September, I started taking the antihistamines (30 days worth of pills and 60 of the nasal spray) I had leftover from my long recovery from sinusitis in the spring as a preventative measure. I think it helped ward off the illen this fall. I’m knocking on every wooden surface within reach as I type this.

What I’m watching and reading

After a rough workweek, I engaged in some self-care and watch The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Netflix). Pure joy. I mean, there’s a serious story about a family coming together…to save the freakin’ world! Boom, baby! So weird, but so awesome. I was smiling the entire time.

Then, I watched The Bad Guys (Netflix). Another fun watch. Sam Rockwell voices the protagonist, The Big Bad Wolf, who leads a criminal gang including Snake (his best friend), Shark, Tarantula, and Pirhana. Most of the denizens of this world are human, except for the governor, a fox, and a humanitarian, a guinea pig. Another weird one, but quite fun.

Next, I watched The Boy and the Heron (Netflix). Mahito loses his mother in a fire during the Pacific War. His father marries his mother’s sister, and they seek refuge at her family estate in the country. Mahito is still mourning his mother’s death and distant from his aunt, who is pregnant. A grey heron keeps appearing, and there’s this creepy tower that was built by Mahito’s great grand uncle. That’s the set up and I think I’ll leave it there except to say one more thing, the book that in part inspired the movie, How Do You Live? features as a part of Mahito’s healing journey. It’s not my favourite Miyazaki movie, but it’s damned good.

Then, Phil and I finished watching season 3 of Vox Machina (Amazon). I enjoyed it a lot and they seemed to tie up a lot of loose ends. They defeated Ripley, Thordak, Raishan’s undead monstrosity, and brought Percy back from the dead, though at a cost. Orthax may still be a problem. Even though they’ve all gone their separate ways for now, a fourth season’s been greenlit, so we’ll see more of the gang’s adventures.

Finally, Phil and I watched Agatha All Along (Disney +). Of course we did. One of the best Disney series to come out recently. I loved it. Watch it if you can.

My first listen of the month was the Audible Original production of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. The more I read Dickens, the better I like his books. All the characters are linked by Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a lawsuit that has entangled generations. John Jarndyce has washed his hands of it and seeks a simple life. He takes in two young cousins whose fortunes have been held in limbo by the lawsuit and hires a young orphan, Esther Summerson as their companion. A man named “no one” dies. Lawyers scheme. A lady with secrets asks a street sweeper to take her to a pauper’s grave. A doctor struggles to save lives. It all comes together, and lives are changed forever when Jarndyce and Jarndyce is finally settled. Excellent.

Then, I listened to The Finnish Guide to Happiness by Melanie Dower. The author moved to Finland nine years ago and shares what she’s learned about life in the world’s happiest country. Very good.

Next, I finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Beguilement, the first book in The Sharing Knife series. Fawn runs away from home after Sonny refuses to take responsibility for the baby she’s having as the result of a night of fumbling in the fields. En route, she’s taken captive by bandits and saved by Dag, one of the Lakewalkers, erroneously known as necromancers. But then, they’re attacked by a malice, Dag is injured, and Fawn must kill the horror herself, but not before it drains the life from her baby.

There’s some ick factor, so be warned. Fawn is slut shamed by Sonny and her family verbally and emotionally abuses her (no wonder she ran away). Fawn is 18 and Dag is 55. They become lovers, but not without struggle over the age difference (by both Fawn and Dag, as well as everyone who learns of their affections, Lakewalker or otherwise). Aside from the action-packed first act, the rest of the novel focuses on the budding relationship and Fawn and Dag’s trip back to her home, where she confronts her family and Sonny, and she and Dag get married. I enjoyed it, despite the ick.

Then, I listened to The Unappreciated Power of Naps, an Audible Original, by Jade Wu. Lots of good information. It has me reconsidering trying to nap (despite my apparent inability to do so).

I reread Nancy Kress’s Beggars Ride, the third in her Sleepless trilogy. Well, I listened to the audiobook because it was slated to be removed from the Audible Plus catalogue. The Sleepless and the SuperSleepless are now fighting each other, and humanity is caught in the crossfire. As good as I remember it, but Jackson has a boner for every occasion 🙂

The next book I finished reading was K.M. Weiland’s Next Level Story Structure. She focuses on chiastic story structure, moves on to scene structure, and answers a few related questions in the last few chapters. While most of this information has already been posted on her website, Helping Writers Become Authors, she’s revised and refined the information for this writing craft book. Last year, I started purchasing her physical books (I have them all as ebooks). I decided I wanted to have her advice at my fingertips. This one’s joined the collection.

Finally, I listened to Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time. Written in 1976, the novel tells the tale of Consuelo, Connie, who is involuntarily committed by her niece’s pimp after she tries to stop him from beating her niece. In the depths of her despair, Connie is pulled into the future to a socialist utopia where she eventually finds solace from her miserable existence. But then she’s put into an experimental program in which electrodes are inserted into patients’ brains to control their behaviour and the next time she travels into the future, it’s to a dystopia.

The epilogue is Connie’s psychiatric history and brings the entire novel into question. Was she in a psychotic delusion the whole time? Despite the ending, I enjoyed Piercy’s feminist ruminations.

And that was the month in this writer’s life.

Until next month, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!