My mind was genuinely boggled when I logged into Substack today and saw that my last update was from the beginning of September. I knew it had been a while, but damn.
I used to pride myself on being someone who could keep a lot of balls in the air at once. I’d be revising one book while simultaneously writing another and cranking out enough new artwork to appease the Instagram algorithm, all while working a demanding full-time career and spending time with family and friends. Sometimes I still catch myself wondering how past-me did it.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t do it, not really. I was dropping balls left and right, I just hadn’t noticed yet. The quality of my work was slipping, I was miserable all the time, and my closest personal relationships were suffering. I — like so many before me — was on a collision course with a truth begrudgingly acknowledged: no matter good you are at juggling, you can’t do it forever.
All of this came to a head over the summer, and by September I realized I basically had two options: 1) figure out a more sustainable approach to, well, everything, or 2) burn myself and everything around me to the ground.
Developing a more sustainable lifestyle required scaling back on a lot of things. I withdrew from the internet in a big way and forced myself to focus on one creative project at a time. I prioritized my outstanding commitments, starting with completing the story I owed to Wattpad as part of the Creators Program. Let me tell you, it is so hard to work on something when your heart just isn’t in it, when there are other things you’d much rather work on instead. But I signed a contract, and contracts don’t give a shit what your heart wants.
And so, after many weeks of dragging my bratty heart kicking and screaming the whole way, I finally did it: I finished The Witch’s Patron.
I feel a little guilty about how resentful I was by the end. It’s not the story’s fault that all I wanted to do was write about my angsty gay catgirl. But it’s a good story, and even though I’m still not 100% happy with it (Keeping up with an aggressive posting schedule while also balancing the nuances of writing for online readers definitely impacted the final product.) it was cool to see how much my writing has improved since I wrote the first draft back in 2016.
Other updates that I missed sharing while I was focused on finishing The Witch’s Patron:
I’m returning to my beloved Reykjavík in April to attend the Iceland Writers Retreat (a misnomer, as it’s definitely more of a conference/workshop), and I’m really looking forward to sharing that experience here!
I had to relinquish my beloved studio space at The Beaumont. Yes, I cried. No, I don’t want to talk about it.
I went on a (solo, albeit unintentionally) creative retreat and wound up learning a lot about burnout recovery in the process. More on that in a later update!
Finally, as we prepare to toss out this dumpster fire of a year and look ahead to 2024, I wanted to tease that I’m launching something new in January, exclusively for my paid subscribers here on Substack. I’ve been working on this secret little project for a while now, and I really hope that you’ll find it valuable to your creative practice. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks! 👀
Oh, and here’s a dumb little comic I worked on when I needed to give my brain a break:
Excited to see what you have for us 👀 👀 2023 was ups and downs and turnarounds. Frustration, stress, and wanting to give up. But, things got a bit better and I think 2024 is gonna be the comeback year!