Burnout Recovery

Hi Everyone!

As the title suggests, I’ve been suffering from a bit of burnout this week. I’ve been trying to maintain a work life balance while also writing book 3 of The Legend of Nariko and working with my editor to clean up book 2 for publishing this summer. However earlier this week I came across a plot point in book 3 that, under further consideration, really did not make sense with the context of the how the series had progressed.

Now normally this wouldn’t be such a big issue. A lot of writing changes and evolves as time goes on and it’s natural for plot points to come and go. However I came across a point where I had planned this moment since the conception of The Legend of Nariko series but now when I thought about the moment it just didn’t fit. It felt like I was forcing an illogical moment to fit just because I wanted it to. The whole story hinged on a point where one of the characters had to find themselves in a place that would never make sense for them to be in.

I wracked my brain for days trying to figure out what to do. It didn’t help that between work, editing book 2, and working on the story and concept art for a game I’m involved in was taking its toll. But I took a moment to breathe and try to reset in a matter of speaking. I went for a walk which I hadn’t done in months due to the current situation. Luckily the neighborhood I live in is pretty quiet and there aren’t people walking around very often. Getting some sunlight and fresh air helped me get some perspective on the whole situation.

I still want to publish book 3 by the end of the year and that is still the goal at the end of the day. But if it means putting out the best story I can, I will delay the book’s release if need be. I think what was putting so much stress on my mindset was that I kept viewing a delay as a failure when in reality the only true failure would be to give up. Writing is what makes me happiest in life and I should strive to do it as best I can as that’s all we can really do in life.

I’ll be posting regularly on Mondays from now on so that I can have the weekend to properly write up an article and avoid a feeling of rushed work. I wanted to share how I was feeling this week as I know a lot of other creative people are also experiencing some burnout from everything happening. It’s a bit cathartic to talk it out and I’m lucky that I have some friends that I can talk to about this.

Thank you all for sticking around! 🙂

– Raphael