Sarah Holman's Blog, page 13

Burnout and Failure

 

A few days ago, a follower on my Instagram account reached out to me and asked me if I was okay. After all, I had gone silent on all my accounts. I didn't even finish my August Amazingness posts. Even this post, which I started a couple of weeks ago, has sat, waiting for me to finish writing it and actually do something on the blog. So why haven't I?

Truth is, I just felt burnt out.

Usually, I'm good at knowing when I'm getting close to burnt out so I can slow myself down. This time, my writing burnout came on suddenly and I just didn't feel like I could write, promote, or even get on social media. I'm not even sure why. Life is going well. Most of my writing burnouts come because of emotional exhaustion in life. 

As an author, one of the important parts of my job is making meaningful connections with my readers. In my ideal world, this would be through either in-person events or from them just reading my blog. But that isn't always how things happen. Most of my readers are looking to make the connection to me as an author on social media. 

This means I need to keep up with how and where on social media they are connecting.

In the last year, videos on Instagram or TikTok are the big deal. Many of my writer friends have created brilliant videos and some of my readers have been wanting me to do the same. But I'll let you in on a secret: I have no talent when it comes to short videos. I tried. I recorded a lot, tried to make some reels, and tried to get inspired to jump on the trend.

And I burned myself out.

I got so discouraged with it because I was trying to connect with readers, and I couldn't even put something together that I wanted to watch, much less share. It sent me into a spiral of wondering how I was going to keep connected with the readers I cared about as social media continues to change.  I felt so defeated. I felt like a failure.

Over the last few weeks, I've slowly been figuring out what I need to do. I still don't have all the answers. Part of me just wants to pull back from all social media and just post blog posts. Of course, I would miss all my readers I get to connect with, so that isn't going to happen.

I'm looking forward figuring out exactly what I need to do and how to make those meaningful connections with the skills I have. 

What are some of the ways you like to connect with authors? What makes a online connection meaningful to you?

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N is for Nathanial

 

Sidekicks are important. They provide balance in stories, especially for intense personalities. Nathanial provides the balance for John in Brothers and Betrayal. While he is technically John's cousin, they two act more like brothers. Here are my favorite things about his character.

The awesome banter between him and JohnHow he helps bridge the communication gap with John is moodyHis love for his familyHow he is willing to be second to JohnHis love for JesusIf you've read the book, what is your favorite part about it?

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M is for Map

 

Someday, I want to get a really good map of Taelis made. I'm actually thinking it would be fun to redo the books with a map inside. What do you think? For now, I'll share this image of the map I use to keep things straight. 

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L is for Laila

 

Lady Laila is a minor character in Adventures and Adversities, but one my husband recently asked me about.

"Did she ever learn her lesson?"

His question made me wonder about writing her story someday. Honestly, if I didn't have so many stories spinning in my head, I would be happy creating stories about each and every little character in every story. Laila being one of them.

Laila is the selfish and lazy daughter of a noble who wants to have an adventure. She ends up with a lot more than she bargained for. But at the end of the story, it doesn't seem she's learned her lesson. 

One of the things I wanted to convey with this series is ongoing stories. Not every story you see has a perfect ending or is wrapped up. I leave it to the reader to wonder, imagine, and decide for themselves. I leave it to them to discuss and learn from it.

You can read Laila's story in Adventures and Adversities.

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K is for Kings

One of the things I've enjoyed exploring is how kingship works. Of course, being from America, we don't have royalty. But the leader of a nation has a lot of impact on how that nation acts.
In Adventures and Adversities, Taelis has a bad who is plotted against.
In Brothers and Bertyal , Taelis has an unreliable king and a brave princess. 
In Courage and Corruption , they have a good but aging king.
In Dreams and Devotion , they have a king who is good, young, and focused on helping Taelis grow.
In Escape and Endurance , we see a king who is also a father, trying to care for his children.

Which king do you want to read about?


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J is for John

John. He is one of my oldest characters. Oh, not in years, he is fairly young in years. However, he was one of the first characters I ever invented.
At eleven, I decided I would write my own version of Robin Hood where he didn't steal (I was a kid, okay?). My Mom wisely suggested I write my own story with my own characters. While the first story I wrote was derivative of Robin Hood in pretty much every aspect (Thank you Errol Flynn's Robin Hood). Yet, through writing that story, I fell in love with writing stories.
Years later, as I was getting ready to write the second book in the Tales of Taelis series, I decided to revisit that old story. I lifted the character from my first story, including his name, and dropped him into Brothers and Betrayal with a cool new title: The Archer.
John has been through a lot in his past, but he has used that pain to help others. Here are a few fun facts about this hero.He has a tendency to be standing up on a rockHe is very good at archeryHe takes enjoyment in witty banter with his arch enemy Lord NotlyHe has a secret helper who helps fund his band
You can check out his story HERE.
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