The Burnout Tango

Last week was an exciting week for me. Remember how I was working on a novel during NaNo last November? I finished the rough draft on Wednesday. (Two and a half months beyond my self-imposed deadline isn’t bad, considering the adjustment to a full-time day job.) Then, a few hours after writing “The End,” I completed and sent out a short story sub.

I didn’t give myself a lot of time to think about the sub after finishing the story, which is probably why I’m so mellow about it now. Too late to second-guess — nothing I can do to change it, at this point.

Finishing a major project (two, in this case) always leaves me in a phase of burnout. Post-novel-draft-burnout generally lasts at least a month and sometimes two or three, while post-short-story-burnout can last a few days or a week or even longer. I still write in these phases, but no major projects.

At least, this has historically been the case. But something’s changing. Either that or the not knowing which project to choose next has been a greater factor than I suspected in my burnouts.

There’s a short story with a hard deadline a scant month away. Then there’s a novel re-write — and it is a total re-write, making it closer to a rough draft than anything resembling a revision — with a soft deadline (read: self-set, with some outside accountability) of the end of June.

Yet even before I realized how much of a crunch it will be to finish these stories on time, I was back to writing. Not story, per se, but story planning. Much as I ever plan, anyway. The story wheels are turning, and I’m not sure they ever have so soon after a draft or project end.

The burnout is still here — it won’t let me kick it that easily — and I see it in my reluctance to blog, in the fact that I sat down and did my taxes start to finish today then spent hours in the kitchen. I’ve been responsible and domestic and all adult-like today, and I’ve hardly cracked my notebook.

– No, Hell is not freezing over.

But maybe, just maybe, having deadlines will fast-forward me through this tricky, fickle phase. I certainly don’t have time for it.