The Little Victories

Hello all. As you’ve probably noticed by now, I’m not a super-prolific blogger, preferring to pour available energy into the books rather than the website. But there have been so many requests for an update that I thought it was about time to hit “pause” on the book and put a blog post together.

In addition to writing progress, many of you have asked about my health. I can say that, while there have been relapses of complete shutdown from last year, they do seem to be getting shorter – from several weeks to several days. I am currently writing most days, working until I reach my capacity. It’s a bit like dealing with a phone that has battery issues. When it turns on it works more or less normally, but it only holds enough charge for a few hours before the power cuts off. Put another way, reaching the end of my capacity for the day is a concrete ceiling rather than a self-imposed limit. Failing to respect it results in no additional progress and just knocks me down a few rungs on the recovery ladder. That ceiling, while not as high as it should be, does look as if it’s lifting, though more gradually than I’d expected at the beginning of the year.

Apart from this slow return to normal stamina, health is actually really good. My spinal healing is more or less complete, allowing me to be fit and active again – a great relief. Apart from the fact that exercise is one of the best ways to vent stress, I’ve always found that a healthier body makes for a healthier mind. Healthy living is like readying a path for the mind to recover. Exercise and the outdoors are often cited as excellent therapy for the mind. For me, forest trails (or just forests without trails) are as inspirational as they are curative.

Burnout is such an imprecise term. Depending on what level of burnout someone experiences, their condition can either be slept off over a weekend, or it can present as something you’d expect to have a far more serious and less pronounceable name. You often hear people say things like “Oh, yes, I had burnout once and all I did was … and by the next week / month I was back to normal.” And it’s perfectly accurate because the term “burnout” covers the mild cases too. I have said that kind of thing myself, often. It’s confusing, then, when you hear of burned-out people who cease to function on almost every level, sometimes for years before they recover. My case wasn’t as bad as the most extreme ones, but the collision between already-advanced burnout and chronic pain and insomnia was rough. It was enough to place me firmly in the group where recovery is not expected to be quick.

When convalescence requires time, state of mind can have a significant impact. Something I’ve discovered during the past months is that an important part of the road to recovery is learning to celebrate the little victories. For some of us, it’s not just about recognising them, it’s about giving ourselves permission to celebrate them instead of despising them for being less than we’d hoped for. Because my recuperation has been slower than I’d hoped for, finding peace with my own limitations presented a significant challenge. Pressure, even self-imposed pressure, can paralyse creativity. Overcoming this and finding clarity of thought in the most pressured context I’ve known has been difficult. The concept reminds me of stress tests in self-defence training. Students usually fumble or confuse the techniques they’ve been taught until they have spent considerable time learning to focus amid a storm of distractions.

It’s taken me years to adapt to the pressure that comes with writing a series, and much of this has happened in the past year. Writers need to be able to mull over ideas. They need to be able to quiet themselves with the discipline of anglers and watch for those ephemeral sensations that defy description but inspire the most authentic words in abundance when hooked. It’s a little patience that produces a wealth of content. Some will correctly point out that, as with many things, there’s a great deal more perspiration than inspiration required in writing, but the former almost always flows from the latter. A little inspiration generally produces a lot of words. Allowing the pressure to dominate can lead to an approach that’s more akin to stamping and stabbing in the shallows without having seen any glint of silver scales. It feels like you’re being very busy and working very hard, but the yield is mostly mud. It’s that vast difference between looking productive and being productive. In the way of productivity, then, finding mental peace and clarity of focus under pressure is the first of my little victories.

Another victory has been in the matter of structure. There were several challenges in drawing everything together. Maintaining a single-POV (point of view) basic narrative while keeping an eye on distant locations and characters presented numerous hurdles. I put together a basic framework some time ago, but as I began to develop the details and settle chapters into their final shapes, some parts just didn’t mesh properly. So I turned back to an old friend – paper. Once again, cluttered charts full of idea balloons and linking arrows spilled over onto more and more pages until it all began to coalesce. The result wasn’t a rebuilding of the whole story, but a guide that allowed me to see what needed to change and how to do it. The adjustments were surprisingly minimal, but the result is a big improvement, and it now flows as it should.

When we read a finished product, the structure seems obvious, and it’s easy to imagine that it was self-evident during the writing process. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s like cutting a path through a dense jungle. The charm is in being able to go anywhere, and that’s also the difficulty. You sometimes have to get there in order to know how to get there. Then you can go back and clean up the loops, dead ends and pointless detours. When done right, the final path will feel as natural as if the original trailblazer never had a doubt, because the doubts and errors were all resolved and erased. Effortless flow through complex series is vital to a reader’s enjoyment, so resolving this most definitely qualifies as a victory.

The third is actually a positive result of a limitation. Not being able to work as fast as I’d like means I spend longer on each section. Downtime rumination is something that never stops, and when I’m covering less per day, I’m ruminating more on each scene. Ideas tend to emerge that might otherwise have been overlooked. Another aspect to this is that every day brings something more to ponder. As you walk through life you’re always gathering, whether passively or actively. Sometimes it’s in the way of dropping mushrooms into a basket, sometimes in the way of being scratched by thorns. Living provides material for thought, and thought enriches writing.

The big victory I’m looking forward to is covering the last of the miles and releasing the next instalment, but until I get there, I’m going to be grateful that though the writing miles aren’t passing by quickly, they are passing by well.

It’s frustrating to have fallen into the grip of burnout so close to the next release. The second book would have been out a long time ago. I usually don’t speak about this sort of thing, but for those who wonder if I’m just being stubborn and doing revision after needless revision, let me mention that the financial impact of this has cost me my house, car, and a rather nice umbrella that must have got lost in the move. It’s not something I shed tears over, though. There’s always good to be found in a change. In many ways, the much cheaper apartment I’m in works better as a writer’s eyrie, particularly because of the endless forests only a bowshot away. But the recent months have not been easy, and this is not a step I would have taken out of choice. What I blog about is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this experience has been like. Please don’t think I’m dragging the process out because it suits me. Being unable to estimate a release date presents far more of a problem for me than for anyone else.

The work that remained to be done when all this hit me was the most important part, not an optional buffing. If it had been releasable at any point, I would have been dashing to get it onto the shelves. It would have saved me considerable losses. While I’m ready to grasp whatever advantages my slow pace offers, I am most definitely not slowing the pace of my own choosing. Finding the good in this situation is a case of picking berries from between thorns while working my way out of the brambles.

A good friend said something that is worth quoting. “It’s all too easy to wish your life away waiting for things to normalise sometime in the future.” In the context of non-speed-wobbling progress, you might say he hit the snail on the head. By choosing to recognise little victories and make the most of little opportunities, we are able to advance and grow in little steps. When a change does come with bigger opportunities, it will find us already poised to seize them.

Challenging times, it would seem, present a fork in the road in the way of attitude. When the clouds roll in and the window panes are streaked with rain, those streaks also mean that there are puddles waiting to be splashed through and crisp, clean air to be had in greedy gulps. Apart from being able to accomplish more, we are richer in so many ways when we can put aside the yearning for a change and instead do what we can with the days we are given. This, at least, has been my experience. If nothing else, I hope it offers some encouragement for others among us dealing with difficult circumstances.

EDIT –  Something I should clear up, based on a comment by Allan, is that there is no financial crisis affecting book progress. I did fairly regular spreadsheet projections, including worst-case scenarios of high medical bills, slow recovery, and unforeseen income drops – so I acted while there was still enough to see me through. If I hadn’t, things would have become messy, but as it is, there’s no financial threat to the completion of the series. Thank you for the offer of support, Allan, and thanks to everyone else for tracking along with me through all of this. I appreciate it more than you know.

Answers to questions in the comments section

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