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FROM OKAY TO SAD |
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HELLO, GODZILA |
If, every time you sit down at your keyboard and start going through the editing process with your editing partner/PA husband and you burst into tears despite the fact that you're doing good stuff - well, that's burnout.
And... simultaneously you're doing your solo hero editing approach and you're well ahead of your team work and fixing later chapters. You're rearranging sentences so that they sound better and replacing words with more refined words, and it's going well. You're appreciating what you're doing but you still feel crap and depression creeps its spidery fingers all over you - that's burnout.
And you wake up every morning feeling depressed...
F**k all that for a game of soldiers. (Funny old term, eh? Very British, except that we said 'sod' and not f***k).
Our push to get Book 3 of Alias Jeannie Delaney out this month wasn't working. Even if I do finish editing this month, there's the final editing stage with my designated reader, the formatting stage and the cover design. I think I've got a title so that's good. But just because Book 1 - Go West, Girl! and Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return were launched in August two years and one year ago, doesn't mean it's cast in concrete and that the same must apply to Book 3, much as I and my PA would like it. When you're suffering from burnout, trying to get your story to the best possible standard you can, well, you're onto a loser and it ain't pretty, I can tell you.
My animal within is trying to protect me.
If I'm editing, my animal (hamster in his wheel) doesn't like it and he's running his little legs like a demented - well, hamster - making my brain's frontal emotion-governing hippocampus
overload, turning to scrambled egg and making me deeply depressed.
I'll call my hamster Squeaker cuz I had a hamster with that moniker once upon a time when I was a kid. So Squeaker is trying to beat up the Big Black Dog. I'll call the dog Godzilla.
It's my hamster's ploy to get me to leave whatever I'm doing because it's happening again. My hamster in my hero approach to editing has bitten me on the rear with its teeny tiny pointy fangs and reminded me that, no - stop! You can't carry on doing this. He's trying to protect my psyche.
The issues 'wot done it' have been burnout due to trying to unleash Book 3 on an unsuspecting public, health problems and the change in plot for a much more exciting big bang ending. It has all indeed 'done it.' Despite the new ending being a much, much more satisfying conclusion, I was still depressed, and being depressed when you're predisposed towards depression ain't good. Also hubby and I hadn't really been out and about much recently. Got to get the book out - got to get the book out. No you ain't, not when it's doing your head in.
We've been through this before but never really attacked it properly. Now we must.
To save our sanities we took off yesterday for Hayling Island in Hampshire, for the first time in two years (I can't believe that!). So glad we did. The weather was okay. Not swimming weather, although people were swimming and boating, but we had coffee on the beach followed by a good walk to a creek that leads to a brilliant outlook over the sea towards the Hampshire mainland, Emsworth and Langstone. Lovely.
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A RATHER MUGGY LOOKING CREEK ON HAYLING ISLAND |
Then we walked hard and fast to get back to the car before our parking fee ran out and because it began spitting with rain, and thunder and lightning had threatened. We got back to the car with five minutes to spare on the parking fee and the rain held off until we were moving. That walk assured me that my physical health is pretty damn good.
So - we asked AI for advice on author burnout and we received it. Extremely good advice and an excellent timetable. I've now got to read it through and apply what's applicable. The depression is receding and I hope it stays that way. So I'm doing nothing editing related for two weeks and be artistically creative. Doctor AI told me! Seems a very sensible idea.
One of the issues is that I'm self employed. If you're an employee, if you get ill, you take time off. When you're self employed, you don't. The other factor is that mental struggles aren't acknowledged to be an illness. You can't take time off - you look fine. But you're not. If you had the flu or broken your leg, you give yourself time off. The same should apply to mental issues, but currently they don't and it's not considered. Bad, not good.
So, all is not lost. I must read my AI proposal, act on it, and hopefully I will have recovered to a certain extent by September.
In the meantime - art! Get cracking, woman!
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A WORK IN PROGRESS (WHAT THE ***** IS THAT?) IT'S A CARDBOARD ARMATURE - A BASE FOR A PLASTER SCULPTURE. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE A MOUNTAIN RANGE |
THE AUTHOR IN A REASONABLE MOOD |
If you've read my mental health story, I would suggest you move on, but if you haven't, here it is.
I'm an artist, writer & renaissance soul & I've suffered depression most of my adult life, certainly since post natal depression hit me. I started writing my epic western trilogy Alias Jeannie Delaney as a result of my emotionally neglected upbringing - Jeannie is the individual I wanted to be to prove to my parents & siblings the person I could be. I also wanted to create a female protagonist in the mold of a traditional western hero because there were none during the sixties & seventies, when I began evolving as a UK wild western woman. So those were my two overarching goals, and will remain so.
Facebook Jo Ballantyne |
The Extraordinary Tourist - TET Life -
New Book Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 1 - Go West, Girl!
The Extraordinary Tourist - TET Life -
New Book Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return
Smorgasbord Spotlight Western Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 1 - Go West, Girl!
Western Alias Jeannie Delaney Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return
https://www.thefestivalofstorytellers.com/main-stage/author-of-the-hour-russell-j-rucker/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/West-Girl-Alias-Jeannie-Delaney-ebook/dp/B0C9YT6DVR
ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY -
THE STORYLINE
Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan is the fastest gun west of the Mississippi. Upon discovering that her sexuality is as fluid as a miner's whiskey & both men & women enjoy her magnificent lovemaking, she feels as though she's been trampled by a cattle stampede.
She's born in vibrant New Orleans in 1865 & strongly rebels against the upbringing of a Victorian girl. The family head west where she finds her true calling on her Pa's ranch. She also discovers with relish that her skill with a gun is lethal. The explosive combination of her tomboy beauty, her powerful charisma, her sexuality & her lethal gun all go against her. People are calling for her dismissal & even her death. Will it be a case of kill or be killed?
IF YOU'VE READ & ENJOYED THE STORY SO FAR, I'D BE INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
