As many of you already know, I was chosen for Round 7 of Author Mentor Match this past March. It’s been a completely wild experience and I’ve loved every second with my wonderful mentor and all my mentee-peers. While I have no complaints about AMM and I am certainly grateful for the opportunity, there is something I want to talk to you about, dear readers, and it is this:
POST-AMM/PITCHWARS/MENTORSHIP FATIGUE.
That’s right, friends. We’re here today to talk about how damn exhausted I am.
This comes after four solid months of doing nothing but rewriting and revising MIDNIGHT AT THE NEON TIGER. I am not yanking your chain when I say this is all I did. We were living in Quarantine Hell and I had a lot of free time on my hands, so what did I do? I revised. And rewrote. And worked and worked and worked until I thought I couldn’t work anymore.
NEON TIGER was not an easy book to revise. It didn’t require smaller changes. It required whole rewrites two separate times, plus line edits. This was a huge undertaking and while I was up to the task, it was a lot of hard work. I think back on it now and shudder a little, because whew, it was a lot.
Of course, I would do it all over again if I had to.
I only just finished my last round of line edits at the beginning of July. I am now in the querying phase. What do most people tell you to do when querying? Write something else! Yeah! Sounds great!
Except…
I spent four months doing nothing but revising a book. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was by it until I didn’t have to revise anymore. Are more revisions coming in the future? Sure! But will they be as extensive as my AMM revisions? Probably not. And yet, as I sit here and write this, I can’t tell you that I’ve been working on anything new. I haven’t been. At all. I’ve had plenty of new ideas and plenty of things I could theoretically work on, but for some reason, I can’t make myself do any of it.
Because all I keep thinking about is this: Wow, I have to do this all over again?
I have to draft a book all over again? I have to revise a book all over again?
Now, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve written five complete manuscripts. NEON TIGER. however, is the one I’ve worked on the most. I have poured my heart and my soul and my blood and my sweat and my tears into that book. I love it and I think it’s been made 200 times better by what I did in AMM.
However…
I haven’t written anything new. Frankly, I am burnt out by AMM. The constant work has taken a toll on my creative health. It’s also rattled me in ways I didn’t respect. What if I can never write a book again? What if NEON TIGER was a one time thing? What if I suck now because I can’t write another book?
These are all irrational questions but ones I’m sure many of us in mentorship programs can admit to asking ourselves. Unlike PitchWars, AMM thankfully doesn’t have a time limit, but I gave myself a time limit anyway because that’s how I push myself. I need deadlines to survive.
Without one, I am floundering a little. I feel frustrated with myself for not writing more, frustrated with my own fear, frustrated with querying, frustrated with everything.
Maybe the solution is obvious. Maybe I need to give myself more of a break/
Because, yes, I will have to write another book one day. I will have to “start over.”
I’ll get there.
It might just take a little more time.
Oh man, I can so totally relate with this. I’m supposed to be rewriting my third manuscript now, but progress has been slow. Wishing you all the best on your writing journey though, and hope you get your groove back soon!
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It’s very hard!! We’re all doing our best out there! Best of luck to you, too.
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