Hiya writers,
I’m in accounting hell this week because I need to get all my spreadsheets, bank statements, and receipts to my accountant and I’ve fallen way behind with my documentation this year. So now I must pay.
In writing news, I had so many ideas for pitches and books come at me all at once that my brain short-circuited and sent me into an overwhelmed paralysis. This happens frequently, as regular readers may know. I used to think of it as a problem to be solved, but I understand now that this is just how my brain works. It’s not something I need to fix, but something I can learn to work with. Something I can turn into a superpower.
I’ll have periods of relative stability, followed by a creative overdose that’s typically triggered by a positive event, such as good financial months or acceptances from sought-after publications. And then my brain goes into overdrive and tries to come up with all the things that it can do, no, must do, this year, no this month, no this week, no right this very minute. I’ll make a bunch of 600-item lists, and then, inevitably, I’m overwhelmed, paralyzed, and very, very tired. Usually at this point I’m also at a high risk for depression because there are 600 things that I should have achieved by now and I haven’t even started. And given how tired I feel, I never will, making me the biggest failure of all time. (And a con artist to boot because I’ve successfully convinced people I’m not.)
I know what to do now when this negative spiral happens. Not disengage, but hyperfocus. Sam, my husband, set aside an hour on Monday so we could talk through this looooong list and pare it down to the one thing would be fun to focus on for the next few weeks. And I’m talking to the women from my writing group later today so we can figure out the exact next steps that will help me not only work on this project, but finish it.
It feels chaotic, this brain of mine. I spent years trying to fight against it. But I see it as a gift now.
I’m never bored. Never uninspired. Never, ever, at the mercy of other people’s beliefs about what is desirable in a career or a life.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Three pitches going into editorial meetings this week, which means by early next week, I’ll either have three assignments from top publications, three pretty cool pitches that can be sent to other markets, or some combination of the two. Oh, and I have a 2,000-word feature in the Sunday Times again this weekend. Look out for it if you’re in the UK!
Cheers,
Natasha