Feliz cumpleaños, Pedro!

Welcome to the inaugural Friday FX post. Considering I’m writing this amidst a fan-freakin’-tastic ocular migraine, SPOILER ALERT, these posts share the good, bad, and ridonkulous aspects of my writing journey. It’s cathartic for me. Maybe you’ve had similar incidents happen and can relate to the struggle. It’s a reminder that while writing can be an isolating endeavour, we, as writers, are never alone.

For instance, the voices in our heads keep us company, whether we want them to or not.

Let’s skip the opening crawl and jump straight to

Episode V: The Self-Sabotage Strikes Back

In my last Writerly Wednesday post, I talked about my strategy for Camp NaNoWriMo this month and emphasized the importance of flexibility when making writing plans. Some wouldn’t dare admit this, but there is life outside of writing, even if it’s currently socially distant and somewhat monotonous.

I haven’t been this excited to be writing in a long time. We’re talking years. Years of my life when I just stopped writing altogether. Of course, there were many things going on, at the time, but I never thought I would push writing so far out of reach. I tried to get past a major illness by diving into work. I didn’t give myself the time to process what had happened. My life had gone sideways and it took a physical, mental, and emotional toll on me. Sure enough, that’s when I decided it was okay to compartmentalize. Oof. The whole hindsight thing is a kick in the teeth sometimes, no?

The last five years or so have been a broken roller coaster ride. The haphazard twists and turns, the sudden stops with me teetering over the edge, just waiting for the world to drop from under me. I’m finally on the meandering road to recovery, but I’ve taken active steps at proper self-care this time around.

I can write about galaxies far, far away, create brand new places where my characters live, yet the “anywhere but here” stories that I write are what anchor me to this world. Writing is as fundamental to me as nutrition and breathing, yet I deprived myself of it for so long.

I thought it would be great to be back in the saddle again. I went in all hyped up, determined to take on anything that came my way.

But, it’s been more like this:

And with far less flourish.

It’s one thing to take note of an intriguing idea as soon as it comes to you. However, when an idea pops into your noggin right before regularly scheduled bedtime, as a bonafide insomniac, I advise against indulging the sudden motivation to do a deep dive on the internet at 3am. You know how that goes, one click turns into several and you’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole, not even the rabbit can keep up.

Saw a couple opportunities that looked intriguing. A submission to a literary agent and a potential internship. Click here, scroll there. Then I found myself on Twitter sifting through hashtags like #mswl, #querytip, #amquerying, and #literaryagent. Click here, link to submission guidelines, link to submission deadlines.

Okay, I got this. Just switch around my Week 1 and Week 2 plans to give myself more time. Oh, I gotta do this thing, too? No problem. First 20 pages? Sure. Query letter? Got it. Synopsis? Yup.

Hang on, didn’t I want to rework my characters, infuse more of my heritage and folklore into the narrative? The base is pretty straightforward. That’s good. But with these revisions, there are those aforementioned flourishes that have yet to be expanded upon, nuanced, to dress up the now naked tree. Research. Gotta do more research. Yeah, it’s fiction, I have leeway to write what I want, but I’d like some ties to the familiar, so the folklore needs to be the right fit, but which ones? Which concepts work best with my plot line? So, it’s pretty much a complete overhaul and I’ve got two weeks. Less, if we’re considering the other thing. Right. That deadline’s sooner. And there’s a writing sample that involves evaluating a book. So I need to read a book in the next couple of days. And the resume. That’s gonna be fun given the last five plus years of absolute chaos.

And…

Yikes.

So, here we are, two days into a new month of crippling anxiety–I mean, the continuing adventures of this writing life. I had a nice talk with a trusted confidante and they reminded me that just the act of making these goals and taking those steps forward is already a win. I overwhelmed myself, overloaded and fried my circuitry, as it were, coming up with all sorts of scenarios and I shut down. It’s probably what led to my only getting a couple hours of sleep lately and most likely the precursor to the migraine, among other things.

I need to remember to breathe, then write. Maybe include some food and water, every now and then. I need to point out that a year ago today, I was slowly adjusting to a new normal–my recovery process that coincided with a global pandemic. Two years ago today, I was still suffering from agoraphobia. If I take the time to appreciate the progress I’ve made since fully committing myself to live my passion and return to writing, I’ll be okay. I can overcome the self-sabotage, one word at a time.

Stay creative, stay weird, be kind to yourself and others.

Until next time,

T out.