Burn Out

WARNING: I AM SO BURNT OUT THAT I AM NOT APPLYING MY 500 WORD LIMIT...FORGIVE MY 822 WORD COUNT FOR THIS BLOG OR STOP HERE...

I have a story to tell you…

A funny thing happened on the way to this blog, this scathing vent to my writers group. A tale of woe and triumph. Poetry in pure motion. Something to stir the soul and rumble the heart and… POOF.

Despite the italics it wasn’t the magical fairy tale kind of ‘poof’.
My laptop overheated and shut down. The eloquent quibbling was gone. The best writing I had done in months.

I stared back at the now black screen, a shroud to the verbiage that was lost to the malfunction. A new found surge to scoff off all technology for a simpler method of communication rose and in rebellion I turned to my handy dandy composition book, identical to the ones from those 1980s elementary days, complete with pencil. Hell, I’d take a hammer and chisel to a brick wall at this point.

Enough with the machinations. Let’s get back to what I wanted to say when the computer went blank.

I am writing a novel. I am burnt-out.

There. The confession lives in the little composition book and on the landscape of my hard drive. Saying and writing I am burnt-out makes it a fact.

Backstory: Since 2007 I have been telling my writer’s group about this awesome saga I am composing that is not just one, or two, but possibly three novels. I boast I work on it daily. I delight in revealing the crafty tactics I use to inspire myself to work—like a naughty kid who is actually a good student but needs that nudge.

Being burnt-out could be interpreted that I want to stop writing this novel but the novel is technically written. It’s the revision that is strangling me. The redundancy of my own verbiage.

I have dabbled in other arts. Read other books. Even considered revisiting school. The same reasoning wins out—I am avoiding the work, the real work, the writing that must get done…

Blank. The computer screen went black and blank. There was nothing else to look at except my own visage.

I am not a fool. I know there much more writing ahead of me to get this novel published (and I’d like to take the good old fashion brick and mortar route. Self-publishing is something I am skeptical about, but I’m not done yet so it’s a moot point and another blog.) I had several lovely friends read my first draft back in 2008. Their positive criticism helped me grip the slab of marble and chip away at the crevices and cracks to make a David.

And then came the burn-out.

I have tried to wriggle my way out of the mire. To get excited about the story again. I even considered moving to Louisiana to finish (the setting being in both Slidell and New Orleans). Roll in the flora and fauna. Tire swing myself over the sloughs. Mingle with the locals and hope to run into a dew-eyed man that is the epitome of my hero.

So Cal is my home. Sorry. Transplanting myself, finding a new day job, new friends, a new apartment would only take me from what I need to be doing…writing!

The biggest hiccup in this revision process is that I have grown. I’m a waaaaay better writer than I was back in 2007. I cringe at the drivel I wrote 4 years ago. So I am re-writing a lot. I want my ‘good’ story to be ‘great’.

But I am sick of my use of the English language. The ways I have abused: ‘would’, ‘has been’, ‘seemed’, ‘that’, ‘dark’, ‘I looked’, ‘she glanced’, and many, many more. Which parts are too long, which are too short? Is the introspection too wordy? Is my hero too perfect, my antagonists too cartoony?

My eyes may as well be staring at the black screen again. I don’t even want to open the file to revise it any more.

I can only compare it to a good relationship that has hit a blip. Maybe I need an exotic vacation. Or a wild affair away from the drudgery so I might return refreshed and ready. Sloth tends to disguise itself as a good intention for me and I end up straying further, only to return after a long absence defeated and feeling more burnt-out than before.

The victory is I don’t want to give up, not after 4 years. I made this commitment to myself; I want something to show for it.

It is a valley I have barreled down into. The mountain peak is icy and implacable and I am laden down with heavy loads; doubt, perfectionism, burn-out.

There. Said it again.

I don’t have a solution but I won’t leave you on a downer. It ain’t much but it is something.

I have a Voice. I want to share it; I need to share it.

I have a story to tell you…